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ROBERT LOT lb i 
PROSE WRITINGS 

EDITED BY 



THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 




ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

From bas-relief by St. Gaudens. made durmg 

Lvenson-s il.ne... Said .o be a he,.er 1, enes, 

of the author than any of his po■.,■..^^, 



a 



.A^' 



^■% 



\ 



Copyright. 1921. by 
THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



RUG 11 '2 

©n!.A6i7915 



THE STEVENSON MANUSCRIPTS 

At the time when the great mass of manu- 
scripts, books, and other personal belongings 
of Robert Louis Stevenson were dispersed 
through a New York auction room in Novem- 
ber 1914, and January 1915, the whole of 
civilization was being shaken to its very foun- 
dations, and the exigencies of the times were 
such that people were concerned with more 
important matters than the acquisition of 
manuscripts and relics. Therefore the sale, 
which in ordinary times would have attracted 
widespread attention among editors, critics, 
publishers and collectors, went comparatively 
unnoticed amid the general clamor and ap- 
prehension of the time. There was, however, 
one vigilant Stevenson collector, in the person 
of Mr. Francis S. Peabody, who bought a 
large part of the unpublished manuscripts at 
the sale, and has since acquired most of 

[ i ] 



the remainder which went chiefly to various 
dealers. Mr. Peabody has generously offered 
to share the enjoyment of his Stevenson treas- 
ures with his fellow bibliophiles, and we are 
indebted to him for the privilege of issuing 
the first printed edition of many precious 
items, without which no collection of Steven- 
soniana can ever be regarded as being com- 
plete. 

It will be remembered that the last years 
of Stevenson's life were spent at Samoa, 
which became the only permanent home of 
his married life, where he kept his great col- 
lection of manuscripts and note books, the 
accumulation of his twenty-odd years of 
work; and where, being far removed from the 
centers of civilization, he came very little in 
contact with editors or publishers who, dur- 
ing his lifetime or subsequently, would have 
been interested in ransacking his chests for 
new material. When his personal effects were 
finally packed up and shipped to the United 
States they were sent to the auction room 
and disposed of for ready cash, and thereafter 
it became impossible for publishers to acquire 
either the possession or the publication rights 

[ ii ] 



of the manuscript without great expense and 
inconvenience. 

From events that have transpired since the 
publication in 1916 of the two-volume Bib- 
liophile edition of Stevenson's unpublished 
poems, we are led to believe that the literary 
importance of the manuscripts was not appre- 
ciated by the Stevenson heirs. It is neither 
necesssary nor advisable to comment or specu- 
late further upon the circumstances which led 
to the sale of the manuscripts before being 
published ; whatever they may have been, they 
are of far less importance to the public than 
the established fact that the manuscripts were 
dispersed before being transcribed or pub- 
lished, and the further fact that they ulti- 
mately came into the possession of an owner 
who now permits them to be printed. 

If it be regrettable that the distribution of 
the present edition, in which there is des- 
tined to be a world-wide interest, is confined 
to the relatively limited membership of a book 
club, the circumstances are made inevitable 
by certain fundamental rules, without which 
no cohesive body of booklovers can long exist. 
And these restrictive measures are not in- 

[ iii ] 



spired by selfish motives, but purely as a 
matter of necessity in preserving the organ- 
ization. 

Some of the manuscripts printed in the four 
separate volumes now issued were not avail- 
able at the time when the two-volume edition 
was brought out by The Bibliophile Society 
in 1916, and it was thought best to defer their 
publication until such time as we could bring 
together the major part of the remaining in- 
edited material, which we believe has now 
been accomplished. 

The notes in this volume signed G. S. H. are 
by Mr. George S. Hellman. The remainder 
are by the editor. 

H. H. H. 



[ iv ] 




ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

There is probably not a more universally 
interesting figure among recent men of letters 
than Robert Louis Stevenson. It is certain 
that no classic writer of modern times has 
made a more direct appeal to the hearts of his 
readers. He was a logical thinker, an alert, 
wide-range observer, an extensive traveler, a 
sympathetic, warm-hearted friend of human- 
ity, a genial host, a thorough master of 
English composition, and a prodigious worker. 

[7] 



He wrote poetry, novels, short stories, technical 
and ethical essays, dramas, fables, prayers, ser- 
mons, tales of adventure, literary criticism, 
history and biography; and he was withal one 
of the most entertaining and self-revealing let- 
ter-writers of the nineteenth century. And if 
in any or all of these branches of literature he 
failed to attain the greatest heights he at least 
wrote with exceptional vividness and compre- 
hension. Indeed his collected works cover 
such a wide range of subject-matter that they 
constitute a veritable librar>^ in themselves, 
suited equally to man, woman or child, of 
whatever creed, nationality or station in life. 
Little wonder that within a few years from the 
time when he passed quietly away in his 
Samoan retreat his name became a household 
word wherever the English Imguage is 
known. For more than twenty years it has 
been one of the foremost ambitions of college 
freshmen to acquire a set of ^^Stevenson," and 
in thousands of dormitories throughout the 
land his works are to be found '•eposing in a 
little bookcase conveniently near the reading 
lamp. It is safe to say that in th' . way Steven- 
son's writings have formed the nucleus of 

[8] 



more private libraries than have the works of 
any other writer of modern times. 

Stevenson, although of spare physique, — 
and an invalid nearly all his days, from early 
childhood, — was widely famed for his mag- 
netic personality, with which he at once cap- 
tivated nearly everyone with whom he came in 
contact; and his wide and ever increasing 
circle of admirers is in large measure due to 
his remarkable faculty for transmitting his 
engaging personality to the reader through the 
medium of his writings. To be endowed with 
a nature of such singular charm and forceful- 
ness, in combination with a marked aptitude 
for instilling it into his works, as if the very 
blood from his veins flowed in the ink from 
his pen, is an attribute with which but few 
writers arc gifted; yet Stevenson possessed this 
in such an eminent degree that his readers 
come to know and esteem the man no less than 
they do hi^ works, — not because of any in- 
spired sympathy for his emaciated physical 
condition, t it because of his mental vigor, his 
cheerfulness, and his undauntable heroism in 
battling wit.i life's adversities. 

His body and mind were continually racked 

[ 9] 



and torn by hemorrhages, prolonged fits of 
coughing, internal congestions, fever, chills 
and ague, indigestion, influenza, insomnia, 
nightmares and other attendant and constantly 
recurrent ills, and work begun during short 
intermissions of convalescence or temporarily 
restored health was oftentimes broken oflF 
abruptly by another long period of physical 
prostration. With some one, or more, of these 
ailments almost constantly besetting him it is 
not to be wondered at, that at the age of thirty- 
seven he wrote that ^'old age with his stealing 
steps seems to have clawed me in his clutch to 
some tune," and that he considered himself an 
old man at forty. Literally dozens of times he 
had hung over the brink of the great abysmal 
beyond, with only a wavering spark of vitality 
connecting his soul with his bodily form. But 
each successive time when he struggled back 
he again took up his burdens and pushed 
cheerily on, determined to discharge his obli- 
gations to his Maker and to mankind. Once 
he wrote to a friend, — ''The good lady, the 
dear, kind lady, the sweet, excellent lady, 
Nemesis, whom alone I adore, has fixed her 
wooden eye upon me." And again, later in 

[lO] 



life, shortly before his death, he wrote to an- 
other : 

^Tor fourteen years I have not had a day^s 
real health; I have wakened sick and gone 
to bed weary; and I have done my work un- 
flinchingly. I have written in bed, and writ- 
ten out of it, written in hemorrhages, written 
in sickness, written torn by coughing, written 
when my head swam for weakness ; and for so 
long, it seems to me I have won my wager and 
recovered my glove." 

And yet courage, hope and manly vigor 
form the keynote of all his writings. How, 
under such a constant handicap, he managed 
to keep up his spirits and turn out the tre- 
mendous amount of work that stands to his 
credit is a marvel that baffles human compre- 
hension. A whole volume might be written 
about his patient and uncomplaining physical 
martyrdom, but to prolong narrations of mis- 
ery and misfortune was not Stevenson's idea 
of entertaining his readers; it is neither con- 
ducive to anyone's comfort, nor consonant 
with the purpose of the present article. 

Stevenson's steadfast hope was expressed in 

[II] 



the following lines written in 1872, and never 
before published: 

Tho' day by day old hopes depart, 

Yet other hopes arise 
If still we bear the hopeful heart 

And forward-looking eyes. 

And still, flush-faced, new goals I see. 

New finger-posts I find. 

And still through rain and wind 
A troop of shouting hopes keep step with me. 

If any one quality of Stevenson's mind tran- 
scended all others, it was his innate tenderness 
and his constant thoughtfulness for the unfor- 
tunate. He did not parade his charitable 
instincts before the public, nor did he go out 
hunting for misery^ w^ith fife and drum ; but his 
eye and his mind were ever alert, and through 
the agency of his quiet, unobtrusive methods 
a vast number of afflicted souls have felt the 
tender hand of charity^ and mercy extended to 
them, as it were, from out the dark. A single 
incident that occurred during his student days 
will illustrate far better than w^ords. On a hot 
July day while he was strolling through the 
park, he came upon a poor ragged urchin 

[12] 



lying on the grass, perhaps asleep. The for- 
lorn appearance of the lad arrested his atten- 
tion, and set his mind to speculating on what 
he could do for him. He thought over the 
things that had given him the greatest joy in 
his boyhood, and it instantly recurred to him 
that scarcely anything had ever exceeded the 
pleasure he had experienced on finding a coin 
in the pocket of some old cast-off garment, or 
in some remote place where he had long ago 
hidden it with a view to surprising himself 
when he should come upon it unexpectedly. 
So stealthily approaching the boy he slipped a 
coin into one of his pockets, then stole quietly 
away, chuckling to himself over the surprise 
and delight that were in store for the little 
fellow. 

If it w^as excessively hot, his heart went out 
to those who sw^eltered in the close, stuffy 
quarters in the smoky, densely populated 
cities; if it was excessively cold he pitied those 
who shivered in unheated hovels, — without 
fuel, bread or warm clothing. We can imag- 
ine that it was on a bitter cold night (in 1872) 
that he wrote — 

[13] 



And first on Thee I call 
For bread, O God of might I 
Enough of bread for all, — 
That through the famished town 
Cold hunger may lie down 
With none tonight. 

One might go on indefinitely with similar 
examples. 

As to the biographies of Stevenson, it may 
be said that those who have read his writings, 
especially the published letters and poems, 
have but little need for any further biograph- 
ical data, for his life has been pretty clearly 
written into his works — especially his letters 
and poems, — so much so that his best biog- 
raphy is made up largely of extracts from his 
own pen. In the extant biographies his 
genius, his virtues, his wanderings in quest of 
health, his individualism, and particularly his 
ancestry, have all been set forth with painstak- 
ing perspicuity; but after reading what has 
been written about him we somehow feel as 
if we had been introduced to ^^little Bobby" 
all dressed for Sunday school, when we should 
have preferred to play with him in his more 
easy-fitting every-day-garments. If Stevenson 

[14] 



was anything, aside from being an accom- 
plished writer, he was human to the core; and 
perhaps we should admire him none the less 
for knowing that he shared with the rest of us 
some of the normal imperfections that gener- 
ally characterize human nature. We do not 
like to look upon those we love as being set 
apart from us, wholly destitute of human 
frailties, — as if they were in a state of pre- 
paredness for being wafted into the next 
world ; but rather would we have them share 
with us the qualities that unite us on a common 
plane. It is sufficient to say that so far as we 
can learn from those who knew and loved 
Stevenson best, he was never, in his early life 
at least, ostracized by his friends for his spot- 
less and unworldly purity. 

From the smoothness and spontaneity of 
Stevenson's style one may be led to suppose 
that his works fell from his pen with unla- 
bored ease; but this is far from being true. 
On the contrary, he had great difficulty in pre- 
paring his manuscripts, which he often revised 
and rewrote half a dozen times or more. The 
art of writing is not born full-grown, any more 
than a man is born into the world with his 

[15] 



mental faculties and physical strength fully 
developed; nor is it a transmissible gift of any 
god or goddess. No one, however gifted, ever 
learned to play the piano, or dance, or skate, 
or swim, or play cards, or even to make love, 
without actual practice. Stevenson, like every 
other successful artisan, first learned the rudi- 
mentary principles of his art, then practiced 
incessantly. Even as late as 1893, the year 
previous to his death, he wrote to a friend: 
"I sit here and smoke and write, and rewrite 
and destroy, and rage at my own impotence, 
from six in the morning till eight at night, 
with trifling, and not always agreeable, inter- 
vals for meals. 

"Be it known to this fluent generation that 
I, R. L. S., in the forty-third [year] of my 
age, and the twentieth of my professional life, 
wrote twenty-four pages in twenty-one days!" 
He was his own severest critic, and even in his 
latter years, when he had become widely rec- 
ognized as a master of his art, he continued his 
practice of revision, and was prone to find 
fault with nearly everything he wrote. One 
of his biographers called him a "natural born 
genius;" but those who are familiar with his 

[16] 



early work will doubtless agree that it would 
be more proper to say that he was born to 
become a genius. He was no more a born 
literary genius than a man is a born physician, 
or a born lawyer, or a born football player. 
He was born with a good brain, which he 
developed and used to good advantage, as a 
workman uses his tools in his trade. He had 
an abundance of good common sense; he was 
industrious; he had an indomitable will; and, 
health permitting, he would have made a good 
lawyer, a good preacher or a good anything 
that he set his mind to, — anything in which 
physical strength was not an important requi- 
site. It is undoubtedly true that certain 
writers, notably of the poet class, have been 
gifted with an innate genius that became more 
or less apparent in their early writings, just as 
others have shown early adaptability in other 
callings; but Stevenson was not among those 
singularly inspired mortals whom genius pre- 
ordains as her own, and over whose destinies 
she presides with unfaltering vigilance and 
solicitude. 

That he had genius is not to be doubted ; but 
it was of the tender species that required cul- 

[17] 



tivation. It emerged from its embryonic state 
rather reluctantly, and it eventually came into 
full bloom only as the reward of hard work, of 
fixed determination, of inexhaustible patience, 
and singleness of purpose. To call a man a 
natural born literary genius is to pay him a 
dubious compliment — as if great works, de- 
spite a total lack of endeavor, flowed from his 
pen with the same natural ease that water 
flows over a dam. We do not compliment a 
man by saying that he was "born rich;" but 
rather, that he is a "self-made" man; or if he 
has inherited wealth, that he uses it to benefit 
his friends, or perhaps humanity at large. 

Stevenson was not conspicuously preco- 
cious, and even after long years of practice 
and assiduous study he still found it difficult 
to form his compositions either to his own 
liking or that of editors, publishers or readers. 
His early determination to become a writer, 
the resultant controversies with his parents, — 
who with native tenacity adhered to their own 
predilections, — his perennial battle against 
the Grim Reaper, whose spectral shadow 
always hovered about him wherever he went; 
his school and college days, his uncongenial 

[i8] 



studies in law and in civil engineering, all are 
matters with which every reader of his Letters 
or his Life is already familiar. 

An outstanding feature of Stevenson's char- 
acter is, that whatever he undertook to do he 
brooked no interference with his resolve, and 
suffered nothing to dissuade him from his 
determination to do it well. The three fond- 
est wishes of his life, according to his own 
statement, were: first, good health; secondly, 
a small competence; and thirdly, friends. 
Only the latter two were ever gratified. But 
in accomplishing the three paramount resolu- 
tions of his life he was more successful. He 
resolved: first, to become a writer; second, to 
marry the woman of his choice; and third, to 
compel the world to recognize his hard- 
earned literary genius. 

In the first instance he found himself rigor- 
ously opposed by the uncompromising will of 
his parents. To surmount this barrier he was 
obliged to employ considerable finesse; for, 
being penniless, he felt the need of their 
pecuniary aid. He therefore made a feigned 
compliance with their wishes by undertaking 
the study of their chosen profession, that of 

[19] 



civil engineering; but all the while he read 
and practiced industriously at his self-ap- 
pointed calling. At length he succeeded in 
persuading his parents into a compromise on 
the legal profession, he figuring perhaps that 
it afforded an excellent stepping-stone to his 
chosen vocation. By the time he was admitted 
to the bar he had advanced so far in his own 
favorite occupation that his parents, consider- 
ing the state of his health, and recognizing his 
budding genius, capitulated entirely and per- 
mitted him to become the master of his own 
destiny, pledging their continued financial 
support. 

No sooner had he successfully carried out 
his first resolution, than he came face to face 
with the obstacles of the second, — which was 
to marry an American woman — an art stu- 
dent — he had met while traveling in France, 
and with whom he had promptly fallen in 
love — without consulting his parents. It must 
be admitted that the impediments here were 
so manifold and apparently insurmountable 
that they most certainly would have dampened 
the ardour of a less determined suitor. The 
woman was married, and had tw^o children, of 

[20] 



whose father she was still the lawful wife; she 
was a foreigner (residing in California) and 
entirely unknown to his family or friends; the 
date of her prospective legal separation from 
her husband was remote and uncertain. For 
an invalid young man bent on literary pur- 
suits, with no assured income, to break with 
his family and undertake the support of a 
dowerless wife and two children, would, to the 
average rational mind, seem little short of 
sheer madness. But not so to the impulsive, 
romantic young writer; he had made up his 
mind to take the plunge, and not even the trip 
across the Atlantic and ^^on towards the west" 
to California (whither his wife-to-be had 
preceded him) could chill the warmth of his 
passion. The arguments and dissuasions of 
all his friends fell upon deaf ears, and after 
managing somehow to get together the neces- 
sary funds for passage he packed his bag and 
set out for America, without even exchanging 
the customary adieus with either family or 
friends. It requires no wide range of fancy to 
picture what the attitude of his parents would 
have been toward this adventure, had he pro- 
posed it to them (which he did not) ; but to 

[21] 



imagine their surprise and chagrin on discov- 
ering that he had gone would not be so easy. 
Ill-health pursued him, as usual, wherever he 
went, and on arriving in San Francisco he 
wrote the exquisite and touching lines first 
printed in the two-volume Bibliophile edition 
of 1916, beginning — 

It's forth across the roaring foam, and on towards 

the west, 
It's many a lonely league from home, o'er many 

a mountain crest, 
From where the dogs of Scotland call the sheep 

around the fold 
To where the flags are flying beside the Gates of 

Gold. 

It's there that I was sick and sad, alone and poor 

and cold, 
In yon distressful city beside the Gates of Gold. 

There are some who can draw upon their 
own experiences as a testimony to the cheer- 
lessness of being bedridden in a strange land, 
without friends or congenial companions; and 
perhaps with the aid of a little imagination we 
might visualize the added discomforts of be- 
ing "poor and cold.'' But to this array of 

[22] 



discouragements add Stevenson's dishearten- 
ing experience of being desperately in love 
with a married woman (who also was ill at 
that time), and we shall not be surprised to 
know that his hitherto unfailing nerve desert- 
ed him for a moment, when he wrote privately 
to a friend, — 'Tor four days I have spoken to 
no one but my landlady or landlord, or to 
restaurant waiters. This is not a gay way to 
pass Christmas, is it? And I must own the 
guts are a little knocked out of me. If I could 
work, I could worry through better."^ He 
afterwards accepted a job as a reporter on the 
Monterey Calif ornian at tw^o dollars a week! 
Mr. Balfour says that "His father, being im- 
perfectly informed as to his motives and plans, 
naturally took that dark view of his son's con- 
duct to which his temperament predisposed 
him." His parental devotion was, however, 
apparently unaltered, for on hearing of his 



1 The first part of this letter was quoted by Balfour in his 
Life of Stevenson, but the last twenty-two words here were 
omitted, and in their stead he substituted the following, which, 
if it was not invented, must have been taken from some other 
source, for it docs not appear in the letter: "After weeks in this 
city I know only a few neighboring streets. I seem to be cured 
of all my adventurous whims, and even human curiosity." 

[23] 



son's illness he sent him money, — with the 
promise of an annual allowance, — though 
neither the welcome news nor the money 
reached him until after he had suffered the 
severest privations. 

In short, within nine months and some odd 
days from the time of leaving home he mar- 
ried the woman for whom he had exiled him- 
self from home and friends, and on the 7th of 
August, 1880, exactly one year from the date 
he sailed from England, he and his wife em- 
barked for home, where they found family 
and friends at the Liverpool dock, with eager, 
open arms to receive them. He had now 
triumphed in his second resolution, and the 
wisdom of his choice was exemplified in the 
ideal relationship that ensued benveen himself 
and his wife, who not only won her way 
instantly into the hearts of his family, but 
remained his constant and devoted helpmate 
and companion throughout the remainder of 
his life. 

But in successfully carrying out the first tw^o 
of his three great purposes in life Stevenson 
had still before him the all-important prob- 
lem, — how to earn a living competence (for 

[24] 



he could not expect his parents to support 
himself and his wife indefinitely) and still 
maintain the dignified position he aspired to 
in literature. The mere act of selecting a pro- 
fession is in itself no very difficult task; nor 
does it, as a rule, involve a heavy draft upon 
one's mental resources to fall in love and get 
married. But for a young author to win the 
favor of the publishers and the public is quite 
another and more difficult matter. Publishers 
are notoriously shy of aspiring young wait- 
ers — much more so than women are of young 
swains — and Stevenson soon discovered that 
the highway to success in literature was a 
lonely, sinuous path, uphill all the way, with 
no sign-boards to indicate the distance to the 
summit. 

At the time when he cut himself adrift from 
his parents and went to California, he had 
already been successful in getting a number of 
articles and essays into the magazines, and he 
doubtless supposed — if indeed he supposed at 
all while the raging love fever was upon 
him — that in America he could earn his own 
way with his pen ; but he soon discovered that 
the light from his flickering torch of fame 

[25] 



had not penetrated beyond the Atlantic, and 
the small foot-hold that he had secured at 
home as a magazine writer availed him noth- 
ing in this strange land. But far from being 
dism.ayed. he continued to write all the while, 
though he was only adding to his already 
ample store of unpublished, and unsalable, 
manuscripts. It would be interesting to know 
if in this period of obscurity he ever dreamed 
that inside of forty years a little scrap of his 
manuscript would find a ready market for a 
sum that would have kept him in comparative 
opulence for a whole year! Like the Prodigal 
Son, he was glad to return home and find his 
father's house (as also his purse) still open to 
him. 

It may, by way of passing comment, be ob- 
served that although the pursuit of literature 
as a pastime is supposed to be both honorable 
and pleasant, yet when adopted seriously as a 
bread-winning trade there are comparatively 
few vvho ever get beyond the stage of appren- 
ticeship. To gain any considerable success 
requires more talents, industry, persistence 
and time than most people can afford to invest 
in a profession, without other concurrent 

[26] 



means of support. Even the optimistic, hard- 
working Stevenson was supported by his 
father until he was thirty-three. Those who 
contemplate embarking in this uncertain craft 
would do well to read what Byron says on the 
subject, and to keep constantly in mind the 
old Biblical saying, to the effect that ''Many 
are called, but few are chosen." 

While Stevenson was at home living on his 
father's bounty during his student days, he 
probably looked upon his literary work 
merely as an essential part of his education, 
and although he stuck to it with bulldog 
pertinacity, it was more in the nature of a con- 
genial apprenticeship than an irksome task, 
such as he found his other studies to be. Be- 
fore he left on his initial trip to America his 
first book. An Inland Voyage^ was published, 
and he seems to have regarded it as a sort of 
joke that he should receive twenty pounds for 
it. In the back of the MS. notebook contain- 
ing the original account of the voyage — 
which he afterwards altered and extended — 
he wrote the following facetious lines, which 
for some reason appear never to have got into 
print until now: 

[27] 



Who would think, herein to look, 
That from these exiguous bounds, 
I have dug a printed book 
And a cheque for twenty pounds? 
Thus do those who trust the Lord 
Go rejoicing on their way 
And receive a great reward 
For having been so kind as play. 

Yes, I wrote the book; I own the fact; 

It was perhaps, sir, an unworthy act. 

Have you perused It, sir? — You have — indeed! 

Then between you and me there no debate is. 

I did a silly act, but I was fee'd; 

You did a sillier, and you did it gratis I 

Apparently the public also considered it a 
joke, for no one took it seriously (save the pub- 
lisher v^ho paid twenty pounds for it), and 
nobody in particular paid any attention to it, 
except that two or three sneering critics 
deigned to notice it. The Travels with a 
Donkey appeared the following year, and 
although a better book, it met with the same 
indifferent reception; its title was paraphrased 
by some unfeeling wag as the ^'Travels of a 
Donkey!" Treasure Island (in its original 

[28] 



draft), which first appeared in serial form in 
1881, was perhaps more widely read, hence 
more widely scofiPed at. Mr. Balfour says that 
"it ran an obscure career in the pages of a 
magazine, and was openly mocked at by more 
than one indignant reader." This contuma- 
cious attitude of the public must have shaken 
Stevenson's faith, temporarily at least, in his 
ability ever to win popular favor. Once he 
wrote, — "At times I get terribly frightened 
about my work, which seems to advance too 
slowly." But the louder the critics railed at 
him the harder he worked, and the more stub- 
born became his determination to succeed, — 
not alone for the fame and emoluments that 
success would bring, but that he might prove 
to his parents that he had chosen wisely in his 
profession. Then, too, he may have felt a 
trifle piqued, that at the age of thirty-one he 
and his wife were still dependent upon his 
father, who continued to provide as liberally 
for them as his means would allow. Steven- 
son's position may be compared to that of a 
soldier storming the enemy's heights; if he 
reaches the summit, glory awaits him; if he 
turns back, dishonor awaits him. Having 

[29] 



entered the fray, there is no alternative but to 
fight it through, no matter how thick the mis- 
siles may fly. And so it was with Stevenson. 
The lives of soldiers and writers are analogous 
in at least one other respect, in that their fame 
usually begins where life leaves off. 

While Stevenson was struggling for recog- 
nition in the world of letters he wrote and 
rewrote, again and again, literally thousands 
of pages of manuscript, all under the most 
trying conditions, w^ith but small hope that his 
work would ever be printed. And it is worthy 
of remark that during that period he wrote 
much, especially in verse, that he never sur- 
passed in his maturer years. His manuscript 
of "Some Portraits by Raeburn," was thrice 
rejected, — by the Cornhill, the Pall Mall 
Gazette^ and by Blackwood's, Yet he went on 
rewriting, revising, and writing more. 

It must require a stout heart and a large 
measure of self-confidence to continue thus to 
labor over the rejected children of one's brain 
with the vague hope of improving their dis- 
torted forms. And in the performance of this 
melancholy task a man must often wonder if, 
after all, he has not missed his calling, — if he 

[30] 



had not better been a "ditcher/' as Byron said. 
In most professions or avocations a well- 
poised man is usually competent to set a fairly 
accurate estimate upon his talent, genius or 
adaptability; he may avow that he is a great 
financier because, having begun with nothing, 
he has amassed a fortune; or a great physician 
because he has effected miraculous cures; or a 
great philanthropist because he has erected 
hospitals and given away vast sums of money 
to worthy charities ; but who shall say, or even 
honestly feel, that he is a great writer, or a 
great painter, or a great actor, when his work 
is unequivocally damned by the verdict of the 
public! A certain measure of modesty being 
one of the usual concomitants of greatness, it 
is not to be doubted that the tardiness of the 
public in recognizing genius has driven 
many a talented and unrewarded craftsman to 
his grave with a sadly underestimated value of 
his life work. In the instance of Burns, Byron, 
Shelley, Keats and Poe, and many others, we 
find striking examples of this truth. While 
all of those named had greater confidence in 
the merit of their work than the contemporary 
critics and the public had yet manifested, they 

[31] 



could scarcely have been so sanguine as to 
have rated it at its present estimated worth. 
Even Byron, who after having been made a 
popular idol was practically driven into exile, 
could hardly have dreamed what a great poet 
he was to become in the estimation of those 
who so roundly abused both him and his work. 

Stevenson was more fortunate than most of 
his fellow-bards, in having lived to reap a rel- 
atively larger part of his own sowing; but in 
literature, alas, the ripened grain is too often 
harvested by hands that had no part in the 
planting. 

In 1883, at the age of thirty-three, Steven- 
son's long and vigorous pounding at the doors 
of the goddess of Fame began to attract that 
reluctant lady's attention and caused her to 
bestir herself and open the door of her ex- 
clusive sanctuary wide enough to give him an 
initial peep within. In that year his revised 
manuscript of Treasure Island was accepted 
by Cassell & Co., and he nearly went wild 
with delight. In his characteristic boyish 
enthusiasm — he was always more or less of a 
boy — he wrote home to his folks, — ^'There 
has been offered for Treasure Island — what 

[32] 



do you suppose? I believe it would be an 
excellent jest to keep the answer till my next 
letter. For two cents I would do so. Shall I? 
Anyway, I'll turn the page first. No — well — 
a hundred pounds, all alive, O! A hundred 
jingling, tingling, golden, minted quid! Is 
not this wonderful?" 

And, what was far more gratifying, the 
book when published had a wild-fire success. 
In a short time everybody was reading it, talk- 
ing about it, and praising its author. It was 
hailed as the best book that had appeared since 
Robinson Crusoe, In the same year the Cen- 
tury Magazine took notice of him, and Editor 
Gilder accepted his Silverado Squatters at a 
good figure. He also printed a flattering 
notice about the brilliant young author. At 
last Stevenson had gained the coveted foothold 
in America, which, added to his other suc- 
cesses of the year — netting him nearly four 
hundred pounds — almost prostrated him with 
joy. In January of the next year he wrote to 
his mother, — 'When I think of how last year 
began, after four months of sickness and idle- 
ness, — all my plans gone to water, myself 
starting alone, a kind of spectre, for Nice — 

[33] 



should I not be grateful? Come, let us sing 
unto the Lord!" 

The next three years marked a series of 
noteworthy successes, including A Child's 
Garden of Verses, Kidnapped^ and the 
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde; 
and their author, on his second visit to Amer- 
ica in 1887, was received with wide acclaim. 
The unheralded and unknown lovelorn immi- 
grant of eight years before had, as if by the 
intervention of magic, become the popular 
literary hero of the day, and from this time on 
editors and publishers besieged him with ap- 
peals for stories, essays, books or anything he 
had a mind to send them. One magazine paid 
him $3500 for twelve articles, another offered 
him $8000 for the serial rights of his next 
story, and a leading New York paper offered 
him $10,000 to write an article once a week 
for a year. He was so overcome by this 
sudden outburst of munificence that he com- 
plained to one of the editors, saying that he 
was being demoralized by the fabulous prices 
paid him in America; that he didn't want 
such sums — all he wanted was a moderate 
competency. Henceforward his fame rose 

[34] 



steadily, nor did it ever suffer the slightest 
diminution. And it is worthy of note that 
with his increasing popularity he felt a corre- 
spondingly augmented responsibility, which 
prompted him to become more and more self- 
exacting in the quality of his work. It is 
doubtful if any man ever bore his literary 
honors with more becoming modesty, or with 
a keener sense of gratitude and personal obli- 
gation toward those who bestowed them. He 
never permitted his standards to trail in the 
dust of commonplaceness, he never wrote him- 
self out, he never bartered on his reputation, 
and he never exalted himself above his strug- 
gling fellow-craftsmen. 

His contribution to the world was large; he 
wrote good wholesome, entertaining stories 
and essays, and his poems — many of which 
are in the nature of personal documents — are 
resonant with human feeling. In his own life, 
moreover, he furnished a conspicuous example 
of perseverance, hopefulness and manly forti- 
tude, worthy of study and emulation, for both 
young and old. He gave to the world the best 
fruits of his well tilled vineyard, for which he 
took far less in exchange; and he left to man- 

[35] 



kind a useful heritage that will outlive all the 
contemporary monuments in Christendom. 

With mournful dirge or sad refrains 

No page he e'er inscribed; 
His choicest wine the world retains, 

While he the dregs imbibed. 

Though tossed and torn by many a gale, 
Though scarred by many a reef, 

His fragile bark, with unfurled sail, 
Returned unto its Chief. 

Henry H. Harper 



[36] 



AN INLAND VOYAGE 

In Stevenson's earliest draft of An Inland 
Voyage (the first of his MSS. to appear in 
book form) the first five consecutive pages of 
the manuscript were omitted in the printed 
editions. Whether these initial pages (the 
first of which appears herein in facsimile) 
were included in his final draft, and struck 
out by publishers, or accidentally omitted by 
the printer, or whether they were left out by 
the author himself, it is impossible to say; but 
the reader is now given the opportunity of 
judging for himself as to whether or not the 
opening chapter did not suffer a more or less 
serious impairment by the excision. In addi- 
tion there are in the original MS. two little 
autobiographical touches that were excluded, 
— by whom, or for what reason, is left for the 
reader to conjecture. In his enthusiasm the 
youthful writer seems to have desired to give 
an honest account of all that occurred, but it 
may be that on more calm deliberation he de- 
cided to omit the parts relating to his embar- 
rassment in the men's dressing room, and later 
his boyish obstinacy in stoutly refusing to 
show his passport, because he was an English 

[37] 



subject; which fact alone he regarded as a suf- 
ficient mark of identification. Or it may be 
that the publisher, not being gifted with ade- 
quate prophetic endowments, was unable to 
foresee his young author's future importance, 
and therefore eliminated the two intimate 
passages on the ground that they would 
neither instruct nor amuse contemporary read- 
ers. In the study of a popular author and his 
works, the public is entitled to all the existent 
facts, and however much or however little 
these suppressed passages may be worth as lit- 
erature they are assuredly interesting as a 
sidelight upon Stevenson's first printed book. 
Their apparent amateurishness becomes a fea- 
ture of additional interest when we consider 
the heights to which the author of An Inland 
Voyage afterwards attained as a master of 
rhetoric. 

At the end of the five pages of unpublished 
matter in the MS. note book there appears a 
little pen and ink sketch, of which the accom- 
panying is a photographic reproduction. The 
grassy banks, the water, the boats and the 
lighthouse are all understandable; but what 
the author had in mind when he drew the ob- 

[38] 



I 




^ 




n 



'^ 



\^i 




y^' 



'KyVxAj v^vvJL()l^ WfcvJ\ f-^sN^^ Ivc^e^^ twK 
/J ... • u 






WU-^ 



5 -'^cL ^^ '\vvv- £^|,\Gvtf^W^^ 

'^7^1^ tee >aX,^vAjr ijfAtui loTc^C? 

nVh Cw^^^ Vtvw-<— Wlv(0^<^ tv-v A^ctCvw 










ject farther up on the page — unless it was the 
Rajah's diamond — is left for the reader to 
determine for himself. 

On the last page of the note book Stevenson 
wrote the following lines, which do not ap- 
pear ever to have been printed, though the 
quatrain shown in the center of the facsimile 
page has been somewhere put in type: — 

Who would think, herein to look, 
That from these exiguous bounds, 
I have dug a printed book 
And a cheque for twenty pounds ? 
Thus do those who trust the Lord 
Go rejoicing on their way 
And receive a great reward 
For having been so kind as play. 



Yes, sir, I wrote the book; I own the fact; 

It was perhaps, sir, an unworthy act. 

Have you perused it, sir? — You have? — indeed! 

Then between you and me there no debate is. 

I did a silly act, but I was fee'd; 

You did a sillier, and you did it gratis ! 



[39] 



AN INLAND VOYAGE 

The two canoes had been baking all day 
long upon a stack of cotton bales, in a fine 
warping summer sun. It was about a quarter 
past one when I (the crew of the Arethusa) 
stole out of the Hawk with my waterproof 
bag on my shoulder and set myself to mount 
the stack. A Flemish custom officer with a 
long spike in his hand to assure himself there 
were no articles of contraband in cotton bales, 
and (as one thought grislily) in human stom- 
achs, and with as much French as was neces- 
sary for his own vainglory, but not for the in- 
struction of his neighbors, laid hold upon me 
and insisted on examining my bag. As it had 
been examined already in one of the outer un- 
known hours which precede eight o'clock and 
the dawn of civilized existence, I was dissatis- 
fied, and expressed my dissatisfaction so 
roundly that he made a feint of examination 
and retired into the second plane in a flourish 
of official cap. 

So soon as I was up on the top of the bale, 
I began to form an object in the burnt-up emp- 
ty quay. Several Flemish loungers came 
below and daintily handled the prow of the 

[40] 



V 

i 



Caa.-oAaTvaa. \,i-^vviL^ ^^pX^y^ UaA^AAv (X U'^^A A^w/He ''^ ^^^^-^ W».A/%OV 
'>7W5 JLa-Lc,^ \ Us (aaa^^^v-^^*-^ /VvA/Vv< <ii< cAa^ ^ (^^^L^ tv/vv^W. t.'ulvju/A a>^ 

tV-v^cA^ \ \i^i*^Ow (a-0 Mk/o ^t~i2_6e4/d<.«.<^ i^u/*^ t^ (;?/4A'^ %7C4«L«^ «l<j»->»-t^^ ' 



Arethusa, which somewhat projected beyond 
the stack; while the mate of the Hawk and 
four or five seamen sate them down beside me 
and watched my movements with ironical 
gravity. Sometimes they spoke to each other 
in tones which it would have been impolite to 
overhear. Sometimes one of the more youth- 
ful Flemings would displace something I had 
already arranged, by way of lending a hand. 
It was the business of the crew of the Arethusa 
to pretend complete unconsciousness of his 
surroundings; the least encouragement to the 
youthful Flemings would be fatal; the most 
humiliating advances would not move the 
men from the Hawk to cordiality; in the midst 
of all these curious eyes and pointing and 
meddling fingers, on the top of a stack of cot- 
ton bales in Antwerp Docks, the crew of the 
Arethusa must conduct himself after the pat- 
tern of a solitary Hermit in the Thebaid. 

Hereupon arrived the crew of the Ciga- 
rette. He looked hot and vexed; he found the 
crew of the Arethusa up beside the bubbling 
varnish, looking hot and vexed. However, 
he brought good news. He had made the ac- 

[41] 



quaintancc of one who called himself a steve- 
dore. 

''What is a Stevedore?'- asked the Arethusa. 

''Head of a gang of porters, fellow;' ans- 
wered the Cigarette. 

^'What's the derivation?'' 

*'0 don't bother!" answered the Cigarette, 
looking hotter, and then he went on. The 
stevedore had agreed to take the tw^o canoes 
down to the slip, which alas! was a good dis- 
tance hence; nay, here the stevedore was with 
a proper following. And the canoes are al- 
ready shouldered and the teams beginning to 
step out, when the customhouse officer with 
the spike, steps in as a Diabolus ex Machina, 
and orders all these proceedings to cease. 
"Nothing can leave the dock before two 
o'clock,-' he explains, and adds, with malice, 
that we seem very ill-informed, and that we 
shall certainly find we have ten or twelve per 
cent, to pay upon the value. Thereupon, hav- 
ing done his worst, the customhouse officer 
once more retires into the immediate distance 
where he prowls watchfully, steel spike in 
hand. I suspect the two crews, as they sat on 
a semi-molten tarpaulin waiting two o'clock, 

[42] 



discussed the value of their gallant ships. 
One of them had never been in the water be- 
fore, it w^as true, and was not yet paid for: — 
// etait un petit navire 
Qui n avait ja-ja — jamais navigue; 
and the other was not entirely venerable; but 
the smallest circumstance, the least adventure, 
such as this voyage on the Hawk just happily 
accomplished — nay, and even the change of 
hands — diminishes the values of such fragile 
articles so disproportionately, that half-price 
would be an absurdly honest return. Pardon 
these old tars, if you please; they were not 
much sophisticated; the niceties of naval ques- 
tions were not clear to their blunt honesty; 
and the gauger with the spike lurked always 
in the middle distance. 

At two o'clock, the crew of the Cigarette 
went in a deputation to the Custom House. 
Here, by his own account, he sustained a legal 
reputation, already of some standing, against 
all the Custom House Intelligence of Ant- 
werp. He explained it was no more just to 
charge for a canoe than for a portmanteau, an 
umbrella, or a hat; and having thus reduced 
the official proposition ad absurdum, he stood 

[43] 



and perspired defiantly, wnile they consulted 
together behind their pen and sought new 
arguments for extortion. Finally, he was sent 
before a person of more standing, who was a 
gentleman, and quietly pooh-poohed the 
whole affair. [At this point the published 
text of the Voyage begins.] 

[At page twenty-three of the MS. where 
Stevenson relates that he and his companion 
were enjoying the hospitality of the Royal 
Sport Nautique, he says, in an unprinted pas- 
sage :— ] 

We were led up stairs to a lavatory, water 
and soap were set before us, many hands help- 
ed to undo our bags. The Arethusa is not 
built like a rowing man, and it was with con- 
siderable delicacy and a sense of natural hu- 
miliation, that he stripped under the gaze of 
all these Belgian oarsmen. He thought he 
could detect a distinct lessening of interest 
after he had disclosed himself; and waited 
with impatience for the moment when the de- 
liberate Cigarette should retrieve the honour 
of Britain by displaying his biceps and vermi- 
forms. 

[44] 



[In Chapter IV of the MS. note book 
where Stevenson, assuming the character of 
"Arethusa," laments his luckless fate, he says 
that '4f he goes without his passport he is 
cast into noisome dungeons; if his papers are 
in order he is suffered to go his way, humiliat- 
ed by a general incredulity. He is a born 
British subject, yet he has never succeeded 
in persuading a single official of his national- 
ity. He flatters himself he is indifferent hon- 
est, yet he is rarely taken for anything better 
than a spy; and there is no absurd and disre- 
spectable means of livelihood that has not 
been attributed to him in some flash of official 
or popular suspicion." After this the follow- 
ing episode was omitted in the printed 
text:—] 

On the present occasion, his usual fortune 
followed him; and when the Cigarette, who 
followed as usual a little behind, arrived on 
the scene of action, he found his companion, 
put aside behind the barrier, with a spot of 
dirty white on each cheek bone, indicating 
the highest transport of unchristian feeling, 

[45] 



and protesting in strained and trembling tones 
that he would not exhibit his papers. 

^'But, man, show them and be done with it," 
said the Cigarette quietly, 'Tou know they 
like playing at being officers and that kind of 
thing, but humour them." 

"I'll be damned if I do," answered the 
Arethusa. "What's the good of treaties? 
You have no Union Jackery about you; and 
mind you, it's a most fundamental part of my 
character — the Union Jack and ^one English- 
man worth a dozen French fellows,' and all 
that." 

Reason prevailed, and the Arethusa handed 
over his passport with a ^^Voila Monsieur, 
mais remarquez bien, je protest eT' The officer 
who was a very good looking chap, I must 
admit, was reduced by this protest to a con- 
dition nearly as abject as that of his adver- 
sary, and during the rest of the time they 
exchanged glances of contemptuous enmity 
and threw themselves into gracefully aggres- 
sive attitudes whenever their eyes met. Nay, 
when it was all over and the crews were seated 
again in the railway carriage, the officer came 
forth, lit a cigarette and strolled up and down 

[46] 



the platform before their window with an 
absurd affectation of calm. Nor was the Are- 
thusa any less ridiculous. Two cocks in a 
farmyard are not more [so]. 



[47] 



THE OPENING AND THE CLOSE OF 
^'LAY MORALS" 

Accompanying the posthumously printed 
edition of Stevenson's "Lay Morals" there is 
a short editorial note in which it is stated that 
the chapters were drafted in Edinburgh in the 
spring of 1879; that "they were unrevised and 
must not be taken as representing, either as to 
matter or form, their author's final thoughts." 
In thus apologetically referring to the work as 
being "unrevised" the editor was doubtless not 
aware that there are at least three distinctly 
separate drafts of the MS. now in existence; 
for in Mr. Peabody's collection there are two, 
— both of which differ from the printed ver- 
sion to such an extent as to remove all doubt 
that the text was taken from still another draft, 
or rather a partial draft. One of Mr. Pea- 
body's MSS. appears to be the first tentative 
draft, — possibly the one Stevenson made in 
1879, — while the other is much longer and 
seems to have been written later, — possibly in 
the fall of 1883, when he wrote to his father: 
"I have come for the moment, to a pause in 
my moral works, for I have many irons in 
the fire .... It is a most difficult work; 

[49] 



a touch of the parson will drive off those I 
hope to influence; a touch of overstrained 
laxity, besides disgusting, like a grimace, may 
do harm. Nothing that I have ever seen yet, 
speaks directly and efficaciously to young men, 
and I do hope I may find wit and wisdom to 
fill up the gap." 

In one of Mr. Peabody's MSS. there is a 
highly important introductory chapter that 
does not appear in the printed f ragment,which 
begins rather abruptly and ends more abrupt- 
ly. The first of the two facsimiles herein 
shows the beginning of this introductory chap- 
ter, and the second shows the unpublished 
ending, which proves conclusively that Stev- 
enson did finish the essay; whereas in the 
most complete edition of Stevenson's works 
the printed text ends incompletely with the 
words, "they must accept and deal with this 
money . . . ." and the reader is left in 
darkness, not knowing whether the author 
ever finished his work, or how, or where, he 
was to end it, if at all. In the later "Bio- 
graphical Edition" of 191 1 it is even less com- 
plete, — the last two sentences of the text in the 
previous edition having been dropped. It is 

[50] 



quite probable that at least the first chapters 
of the piece were written while the author's 
thoughts on the subject were in a state of em- 
bryo, for his outlook on life was based upon 
theory rather than experience. But this de- 
tracts nothing from the interest of the work as 
an introspective study. What he would have 
said had he written it late in life is no more to 
the point than it would be to speculate on 
what changes he might have made in any 
other work had he rewritten it in after life. 
What concerns us is what he actually did 
write; and the fact that he did not destroy the 
MSS., as he did many others, would indicate 
that he was willing to have the essay publish- 
ed after his death. There is nothing to war- 
rant an assumption that he intended to revise 
the essay again or make it longer than it is, 
except that in the opening chapter he refers 
to it as a book, rather than as an essay. 

The two top lines of manuscript in the sec- 
ond photographic reproduction are identical 
with the ending of the more complete printed 
text; and it will be seen that immediately fol- 
lowing, on the same page of manuscript there 
is an unprinted recapitulation, in seven short 

[51] 



paragraphs, which apparently did not appear 
in the draft used by the printer. 

What the author's "final thoughts'' were — 
if he contemplated any further revision — it is 
of course impossible to say; but it is at least 
certain that he devoted a great deal of thought 
to the subject, and it is likely that he ultimate- 
ly succeeded in rounding it out about as he 
wanted it. The fourth (which is the final) 
chapter is by far the most important, and 
seems to have bothered him more than any 
other, for he rewrote that part repeatedly, 
changing it slightly each time. In one of the 
short suppressed passages he says: "There is 
no such word as belong in Morals. However 
much a man may seem pressed by great he- 
reditary fortunes, there is nothing in life for 
an honest man but exchange of service. Nei- 
ther the existence of great hereditary fortunes 
in the hands of others, nor the possession of 
one for himself, can confuse the appreciation 
of an honest and thoughtful soul ; he will see 
a reciprocity of services, and nothing more. 
He is one of mankind's stewards. He but 
holds [his fortune] in trust for mankind, and 
to mankind it must return." 

[52] 



But in rewriting the manuscript Stevenson 
omitted this, probably because he had repeat- 
ed the substance of it elsewhere in the essay. 
There are also a few other short passages that 
were omitted, either for the same reason, or 
else because he considered them too abstruse, 
even for a didactical theme. 

The text as printed, without the introduc- 
tory part, fails to indicate what Stevenson par- 
ticularly specified, both in the opening 
sentence and in the letter to his father, — 
namely, that the essay was addressed to young 
men. The complete work is not given here, 
for the reason that the portion already printed 
is protected by copyright, and Mr. Peabody's 
MS. covering that part does not differ suffi- 
ciently to warrant us in printing it without 
infringement on the publisher's rights. It is 
unfortunate that so important a piece as this 
— to which Stevenson probably gave more 
serious thought than to any other essay he ever 
wrote — should have been given to the world 
as an "unrevised" and unfinished fragment, 
whereas the author not only revised it repeat- 
edly, but finished it, as shown by his summing 
up at the end. 

[S3] 



The possessor of one of these volumes may 
perhaps find some amusement in making for 
himself a complete copy of the essay by join- 
ing together the parts here printed with those 
already published; and against such an act no 
copyright injunction would hold. 

The following is the hitherto unpublished 
introductory chapter to "Lay Morals." 



[54] 







Av»v.x»-6// . /u ;. » fc)>i p»«». &*^^<t/!<>UL «^«** f'v^C^^ e<(A^ <»— *C /a-t..^^t„^*»~«*^C'j ^ Ul^^yV^ a-in^^^.^t^t/s^ , U^ 










/ 




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LAY MORALS 

The person to whom this writing is addres- 
sed is any young man, conscious of his youth, 
conscious of vague powers and qualities, and 
fretting at the bars of life. Like one who 
comes late to the doors of the theatre, he finds 
the crowd compact, and wanders in the open. 
There seems no entry for him to the business 
or the serious pleasures of the human world; 
and he is asked instead to mind dry and some- 
what pointless studies, to follow arbitrary 
rules, and to bear with patience the reproof of 
persons duller than himself. He is capable 
of the finest acts and sentiments, which some- 
how, in his present circumstances, seem never 
to be in season. In front of him, in the thick 
of the world, he foresees for himself a leading 
and romantic part; perhaps not falsely. How 
to behave in the great walks of life, he seems 
to know; but in this empty vestibule, where he 
still waits his turn, there seems a lack of 
worthy business. 

In this writing, nothing has been said with 
the design of pleasing parents and guardians. 
I am afraid the work will not be thought good 
enough to put into the hands of youth by any 

[55] 



elder friend, and if the young men, for whom 
it is intended, do not see and choose it for 
themselves, it will not improbably remain un- 
read. There are no guides in life, for a 
thousand reasons; but for this reason first, that 
we have all so fallen and so bemired ourselves 
and grown so bewildered in the paths of this 
rude labyrinth, that not a man among us 
knows clearly where he is or how he got there. 
Hence that something of insincerity to which 
the poor clergyman, forced to hold up a cut 
and dry ideal, is condemned. In this writing, 
I, having the advantage of the clergy, shall 
try only to be honest; a hard attempt — "We 
are upon an undertaking very difficult." And 
not only difficult, but responsible. But the 
responsibility of the writer discharges not a 
jot of the responsibility of him who reads. If 
you go wrong and are guilty of cruel and un- 
manly acts, and come, friendless and hating 
yourself, to the end of a detestable career, the 
reading of this book will be no more than a 
pretext for cowards to allege. "There was a 
nearer neighbour within, who was incessantly 
telling you how you should behave; but you 

[56] 



waited for the neighbour from without to tell 
you of some false, easier way." 

The name of God and such expressions as 
"sin" and "the soul" have been allowed to find 
a place in the following pages. This may be 
galling to the feelings of the conscientious 
atheist; that strange and wooden rabbi — and 
never so strange or so wooden as when very 
young. But the writer would have him to 
notice that, as the work goes on, each of these 
expressions has its sense explained; that the 
sense at least is eternal, being founded in ex- 
perience; that to invent new phrases from old 
thoughts, though it may be delicately flatter- 
ing to a school of philosophy, is not the busi- 
ness of a man who loves and seeks to use the 
purity of English speech; and lastly that as 
the strictest Christians read and find improve- 
ment in the books of pagan sages, the most 
delicate unbeliever may come perhaps unin- 
jured from the perusal of the name of God. 
This is perhaps said with bitterness; but what 
can be more bitter than to find man, in all ages, 
returning to the angry follies of his youth, and 
each fresh movement in our superficial think- 
ing made the signal for some renunciation of 

[57] 



the past? Being what we are, the descend- 
ants at least of savages, the creatures of our 
fathers, the inheritors of every nerve and fea- 
ture, the true wisdom for mankind must be 
ever to explain and to subsume in wider know- 
ledge, not to deny, the faith and experience of 
predecessors. It is thus that we proceed; but 
by a singular infirmity, we cannot return to 
fill our baskets from the forgotten wealth of 
antiquity, without casting forth and treading 
under foot the wisdom of some later age. So 
it is in art; and so in morals. 

Lastly, besides the presence of some good 
old English words, the book is inoffensive to 
the straitest of the modern sect. It is truly 
secular and temporal, costs not a glance be- 
yond the little, lit, tumultuous island of man's 
life upon the vasty darkness of eternity; and 
still forgetful of the great myths or more ma- 
jestic and mysterious verities, busies itself 
close at hand with the pleasures and prudence 
of today. There is much in common to all; 
upon that common ground the arguments are 
founded and from that common store the ex- 
perience deduced. 

To every view of morals there are two 

[58] 



sides: what is demanded by the man; what is 
exacted by the conditions of life. Let us be- 
gin with a fragment upon either, not to say 
what is new, but to remind ourselves of man's 
extraordinary attributes and situation. 

[Between the foregoing and the beginning 
of the work as printed, this unpublished sen- 
tence appears in Mr. Peabody's draft of the 
MS.: 

"What a man makes of this world for him- 
self, and what view of it he teaches to aspir- 
ing youth, gives the measure of what we may 
hope from him in thought or conduct, and 
constitutes what we call that man's religion." 
And the following resume should be read 
after the closing words in the printed text, 
"they must accept and deal with this money." 
Thus, with what is printed here, and what has 
already been published, we have the essay 
complete, as Stevenson intended it: — ] 

And now, let us look back and see what we 
have reached upon this practical point of 
money. 

[59] 



I St. — That wealth should not be the first 
object in life. 

2nd. — That only so much money as he has 
earned by services to mankind, can a man hon- 
estly spend on his own comfort or delight. 

3rd. — That of what he has earned, only so 
much as he can spend for his own comfort or 
delight, is his to spend at all; and that what- 
ever is spent by carelessness or through habit 
or for ostentation, is spent dishonestly and to 
the hurt of mankind. 

4th. — That whatever we have in our hands 
which we have not earned, or which we can- 
not spend to profit or sincere pleasure on our- 
selves, we must return in principal or interest, 
to mankind at large; to some other persons to 
whom it will be profitable or sincerely pleas- 
ureable. 

And 5th. — That this may be best done by 
helping our own friends. 

Is not this a very natural, easy and plain- 
sailing scheme of life? Wealth should not be 
the first object in life; but how can it, except 
in arid and contented natures, or after some 
violence has been done to the mind externally 
in the misused name of Prudence? We have 

[60] 



they may be unfaithful to the trust, but you will have 
done your best and told them on what a solemn 
responsibility they must accept and deal with this 
money. . . . 

Mt this point tbe fragment breaks o/:~[Ed.] 



fi^co^ c^^ &j^t>x, mJxt )xc:^ <v^*vv»^ . 

v^ v>x ifc:. ^^^..^J:.v,J^ , u^c^^ yv^- oe^L-^ «.tA.oi^^ Y>^|^. V)4aKa>u4A vJV 



a thousand instincts, and a man who begins 
life wisely must consider them all, and not 
only that which leads us to desire wealth. Is 
it natural to buy things we have no mind to? 
To eat and drink till we are sick? And is it 
not the natural motion of the soul to communi- 
cate wealth among our friends and make them 
all prosperous in our prosperity? 



[6i] 



THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE ^ 

Under the title of "Essays and Fragments" 
in the most complete edition of Stevenson's 
works there is a four-page fragment entitled 
"The Genesis of The Master of Ballantrae;" 
but, strangely enough, like the published frag- 
ment of "Lay Morals," it lacks both the head 
and the tail — two rather important accom- 
paniments. In its direct bearing upon one of 
Stevenson's greatest novels — the only one con- 
ceived and mainly written in America — this 
piece must be credited with a highly import- 
ant position. The printed text begins, "I was 
walking one night on the verandah — " which, 
as will be seen by the accompanying facsimile, 
is far down on the first page of the MS. The 
unpublished opening lines are decidedly 
"meaty," and possess a human interest scarce- 
ly equalled in the printed portion. More- 
over, they show that the piece was really in- 
tended as an epilogue to the story. Then, in 
the printed edition the curtain is suddenly 

1 At Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, in De- 
cember, 1887, Stevenson set enthusiastically to work upon this 
romance, which was not completed until the following May, 
when he was at Honolulu. It first appeared in print, as the 
"Author's Edition," in the year i888, although it was not is- 
sued for the public at large until 1889. 

[63] 



rung down in the middle of an act, without 
giving Ephraim Mackellar — one of the im- 
portant characters — a chance to make an ap- 
pearance. 

It is regrettable that, although Mr. Pea- 
body's draft of the MS. carries us considerably 
farther than the one used by the printer, there 
still seems to be another page or so wanting. 
The concluding part may have been lost or de- 
stroyed; or it may have become detached and 
found lodgment with some collector when 
Stevenson's books, manuscripts, letters and 
other personal effects were dispersed through 
the auction room several years ago. If ever 
it comes to light in any quarter of the earth, 
it is to be hoped that it will find its way back 
to the major portion from which it became 
dismembered; thus making it possible at some 
future day to print the epilogue in its com- 
pleteness. By interposing the printed frag- 
ment (which appears at page 431, Volume 
XXII, of the Thistle edition) between the 
two parts here following, the reader will have 
the work as complete as it is possible to make 
it, for the present at least. 

[64] 




(.^^Yv-JU tU. CcU-*. — M (^ ^ — -^ ^ t^-TjA -ft — ». £<,^.>^ Xr^^M. ''A-^|'»^t-fc_ ^-k — ^ 



NOTE TO "THE MASTER OF 
BALLANTRAE" 

An account of how a story arose in the 
writer's mind, from and towards what points 
the course of invention travelled, what facts 
were utilized, what were easy and what hard, 
and how the finished work looks in the eyes 
of its begetter, has always seemed to me excel- 
lent reading for the curious. Placed in front, 
I should be inclined to judge it an imperti- 
nence; placed as a rear guard to the volume, 
it may serve a useful purpose on occasion. 
The story may be read, and it may lack yet 
half an hour of your accustomed bedtime; or 
you may have bought the volume to beguile 
the tedium of a journey, and have come to the 
last page some way short of your expected 
destination; at such time no one would care to 
embark on matter entirely new, and yet he 
might be ready enough to dwell a little long- 
er from a new standpoint on the same train of 
thought which he has been following so long. 
The magician after he has prepared his sleight 
of hand will sometimes afford a second, and a 
fresh, pleasure by explaining the method of 
his dexterity. As some such afterpiece, for 

[65] 



an empty moment, it is hoped this note may be 
regarded. 

[At this point the printed text begins with 
"I was walking one night on the verandah of 
a small house in which I lived, outside the 
hamlet of Saranac," — (this being the winter 
that Stevenson spent at Saranac Lake, N. Y.), 
and runs along substantially the same as the 
manuscript, except that the following import- 
ant passage was omitted : — ] 

It was the case of Marquis of Tallibardine 
that first struck me; the situation of a younger 
brother succeeding in this underhand, irregu- 
lar fashion, and under an implied contract of 
seniority, to his elder's place and future, 
struck me as so full of bitterness, and the men- 
tal relations of a family thus circumstanced 
so fruitful of rnisjudgment and domestic ani- 
mosity, it took my fancy then as a drama in 
a nutshell, to be solved between four persons 
and within four walls; with my new incident 
and with my new aim, I saw myself, and re- 
joiced to be, committed to great spaces and 
voyages, and a long evolution of time. But 

[66] 



in the matter of the characters involved, I de- 
termined to adhere to the original four actors. 
With four characters — two brothers, a father, 
and a heroine (all nameless but in a deter- 
mined relation) I was to carry the reader to 
and fro in space over a good half of the world, 
and sustain his interest in time through the ex- 
tent of a generation. 

[The printed fragment ends with this sen- 
tence: ''I know not if I have done him [the 
Chevalier Burke] well, though his moral dis- 
sertations always highly entertained me; but I 
own I have been surprised to find that he re- 
minded some critics of Barry Lyndon after 
all. ..." Then from this point the un- 
printed MS. runs on as follows: — ] 

Surely, beyond the worsted lace of his gen- 
tility, and a trick of Celtic boastfulness, my 
poor chevalier, eminently proud of his degra- 
dation, unaffectedly unconscious of his gen- 
uine merit, is a creature utterly distinct, in the 
essential part of him, from the brute whom 
Thackeray disinterred out of the Newgate 

[67] 



Calendar and set re-existing, for the time of 
the duration of the English language. 

The need of a confidant for Mr. Henry led 
to the introduction of Mackellar, for it was 
only to a servant that a man such as I con- 
ceived Mr. Henry, could unbosom; and no 
sooner had he begun to take on lineament, 
than I perceived the uses of the character, and 
was at once tempted to intrust to him the part 
of spokesman. Nothing more pleases me than 
for one of my puppets to display himself in 
his own language; in no other way than this of 
the dramatic monologue, are humorous and 
incongruous traits so persuasively presented. 
The narration, put in the mouth of the land 
steward, would supply, as if by the way and 
accidentally, a certain subdued element of 
comedy, much to be desired, and scarce other- 
wise, except by violence, to be introduced. 
Besides which, the device enabled me to view 
my heroine from the outside, which was doub- 
ly desirable. First, and generally, because I am 
always afraid of my women, which are not ad- 
mired in my home circle; second, and partic- 
ularly, because I should be thus enabled to 
pass over without realization an ugly and del- 

[68] 



icate business, — the master's courtship of his 
brother's wife. Accordingly, and perfectly 
satisfied with myself, I hastily wrote and re- 
wrote the first half of my story, down to the 
end of the duel, through the eyes and in the 
words of the good Ephraim. Cowardice is 
always punished; I had no sooner got this 
length, I had no sooner learned to appreciate 
the advantages of my method, than I was 
brought face to face with its defects and fell 
into a panic fear of the conclusion. How, 
with a narrator like Mackellar, should I 
transact the melodrama in the wilderness. 
How, with his style, so full of disabilities, at- 
tack a passage which must be either altogether 
seizing or altogether silly and absurd? The 
first half was already in type, when I made up 
my mind to have it thus done, and recom- 
mence the tale in the third person. Friends 
advised, one this way, one that; my publishers 
were afraid of the delay; indolence had 
doubtless a voice; I had besides a natural love 
for the documentary method in narration; and 
I ended by committing myself to the imper- 
sonation of Mackellar, and suffering the pub- 
lication to proceed. 

[69] 



I was doubtless right and wrong; the book 
has suffered and has gained in consequence; 
gained in relief and verisimilitude, suffered 
in fire, force and (as one of my critics has well 
said) in ''large dramatic rhythm." The same 
astute and kindly judge complains of "the 
dredging machine of Mr. Mackellar's mem- 
ory, shooting out the facts bucketful by buck- 
etful;" and I understand the ground of his 
complaint, although my sense is otherwise. 
The realism I love is that of method; not only 
that all in a story may possibly have come to 
pass, but that all might naturally be recorded 
— a realism that justifies the book itself as 
well as the fable it commemorates. 



[70] 



THE MERRY MEN, ETC. 

The following Preface, although entitled 
"The Merry Men," really has more to do with 
the volume as a whole than with the title-story, 
and deals particularly with the three stories, 
"Will o' the Mill," "Thrawn Janet," and 
"Markheim," printed in the collection. In 
view of the fact that Stevenson was more 
prone to find fault with his stories than to 
praise them, it will interest his readers to 
know that he "very much admired" these 
three. The piece certainly reads very smooth- 
ly and entertainingly, and it seems queer that 
it never got into print. It ends rather abrupt- 
ly, but there is nothing, so far as known, to in- 
dicate that Stevenson ever extended it any 
farther. In fact the manner of its ending — 
in about the middle of the page — would sig- 
nify that he did not. The photographic re- 
production of the first page of the MS. shows 
that he had considerable difficulty in getting 
it to suit him, and some entertainment may be 
found in deciphering the cancelled passages 
and following the irregular course of his ini- 
tial thoughts. 

[71] 



If there was any one branch of Stevenson's 
profession in which he delighted, above all 
others, it appears to have been that of writing 
prefaces. In this congenial occupation he 
was always in his happiest mood. Indeed his 
short, good-humored Preface to An Inland 
Voyage is thought by some to be one of the 
most enjoyable parts of that book. "A pre- 
face," he says, "is more than an author can re- 
sist, for it is the reward of his labors." 



[72] 



J^-' J'Ji^^K ^U-^(^ liW-y^ - ^^^ -&/^'^■<,V^ 

7 ^o. I Vv^O-A^k fWv^v-^ C^^^, 'i'W: ! ' ftX^ ^^ 'U^Xy-v i^^T*^^^ c7Ca3rti> 

r^;C.?fc--tljN4>-*-4;W oiv-^ W->:/trr*rC^^r--Cv*Xt<> /J^' /^^v^, l^^ZJ (^jtX^^vl 
I I v^>-< — * H*^ » I J ^ ' . ] ft) 



/ 















PREFACE FOR "THE MERRY MEN" 

I am given to understand the days of pre- 
faces are now quite over, and those who still 
care to read such things — or even write them 
— a despised minority. A preface then is 
like the top of a high mountain, seemingly a 
spot of much publicity, truly as private as a 
chamber; where a person of defective ear may 
stand up, in the view of several counties and 
sing without reproof. Or we may say again 
that what a man writes there is singly for him- 
self, like those loving legends and beloved 
names that we engrave on the sea-sand before 
the return of the flood. 

Nothing is more agreeable to the writer 
than to let his pen move ad libitum and with- 
out destination; careless where he shall pass 
by or whither, if anywhere, he shall arrive. I 
question if it be equally pleasing to a reader; 
but in a preface I am safe from their intrusion 
and may run on, and gratify myself — and to 
some extent gratify my publisher, who is be- 
wailing the thinness of the volume — like the 
singer on the mountain top, without offence. 

The stories here got together are somewhat 

[73] 



of a scratch lot. Three of them seem to me 
very good and in the absence of the public, I 
may even go the length of saying that I very 
much admire them; these three are "Will o' 
the Mill,'^ "Thrawn Janet,'^ and "Markheim." 
*Thrawn Janet" has two defects; it is true 
only historically, true for a hill parish in Scot- 
land in old days, not true for mankind and 
the world. Poor Mr. Soulis's faults we may 
equally recognize as virtues; and feel that by 
his conversion, he was merely coarsened; and 
this, although the story carries me away every 
time I read it, leaves a painful feeling on the 
mind. I hope I should admire "Will o' the 
Mill" and "Markheim" as much, if they had 
been written by someone else; but I am glad 
no one else wrote them. 

One is in a middle state; some persons of 
good taste finding it pizzicato and affected to 
the last degree; others finding in it much gen- 
iality and good nature. 

This Eileen Amos, first under that name, 
and more recently under its true name, Eileen 
Eanaid, has done me yeoman's service. First 
it was the backbone of "The Merry Men," 
then it made a tolerable figure in "Kidnap- 

[74] 



ped;" and now (its last appearance) it is to 
supply the present volume with a preface. 

The author sees in his work something very 
different from the reader; the two parts are 
incompatible; that unhappy man who has 
written and rewritten every word with inky 
fingers, and then passed through the prolong- 
ed disgust of proof sheets, has lost all touch 
with his own literature. They are presum- 
ably the books he would like to read, since 
they are those he has been pleased to write; 
yet he can never read them. To him they 
speak only of disappointment and defeat, and 
are the monuments of failure. I have long 
had a desire to read Treasure Island, which 
cannot be gratified; I might read the Rig 
Veda in the original — never Treasure Island \ 
and think of the sad case of Mr. Meredith 
who can never read Rhoda Fleming^ Mr. An- 
stey who can never read A Fallen Idol, or Mr. 
Lang who is debarred from the Letters to 
Dead Authorsl 

Yet there is an intimate pleasure, hard to 
describe, and quite peculiar to the writer of 
imaginative work. It is in some sense the ful- 

[75] 



filment of his life; old childish day-dreams 
here have taken shape, — poignant and vague 
aspirations. 



[76] 



A FRENCH LEGEND, Etc. 

The following piece, found among Steven- 
son's manuscripts, has never been printed, so 
far as we are able to discover. It may have 
been intended to go in some more extensive 
work, though there is no evidence to warrant 
such an assumption, and we therefore give it 
as it stands in the original. "The district 
where we are," was probably Fontainebleau, 
and the manuscript was doubtless written 
while Stevenson was studying in France, — 
perhaps in 1875. 



\.77'\ 



A FRENCH LEGEND 

AND THOUGHTS ON DEATH 

One tale, whether it be legend or sober his- 
tory, and although it is not connected with the 
district where we are, serves to enhance for 
the mind the grandeur of the forests of France, 
and secures us in the thought of our seclusion. 
When the young Charles Sixth hunted the 
stag in the great woods of Senlis, one was 
killed, having about its neck a collar of bronze 
and these words engraved upon the collar: 
"Caesar mihi hoc donavit." [Caesar gave me 
this.] It is no wonder if the imagination of 
the time was troubled by this occurrence, and 
men stood almost aghast to find themselves 
thus touch hands with forgotten ages. Even 
for us, it is scarcely with idle curiosity that 
we think of how many ages this stag had car- 
ried its free antlers up and down the wood, 
and how many summers and winters shone 
and snowed upon the imperial badge. And 
if the extent of solemn wood can thus safe- 
guard a tall stag from the horns and the swift 
hounds of mighty hunters, sheltered in these, 
for years, solemn patriarchs, — bald, dim with 

[78] 



age, bleared and faded, and overgrown with 
strange mosses and lichens, terrible with their 
dull life of centuries, indifferent while the 
generations were succeeding one another, and 
angry multitudes surging and yelling, while 
kingdoms change hands, — might not we also 
elude, for some great space of time, the clutch 
of the thing. White Death, who hunts us 
noiselessly from year to year? Might not we 
also play hide-and-seek in these far groves 
with all the pangs and trepidations of man's 
life, and elude the thing. White Death, who 
hunts us noiselessly from year to year? 

For this is the desire of all in this; and even 
of those who have prepared themselves to wel- 
come Death, as a child, after a long day's 
noisy pleasure at the fair, who had slipped 
away from his party and wandered, stunned 
and joyful, among the booths and barracks, 
gingerbread and shows, and beaten cymbals of 
the fair, darkness at last growing about him 
and weariness and a little fear beginning to 
take possession of his soul, might welcome the 
severe parent who comes to scold and lead him 
home. 

[79] 



A NOTE AT SEA— 1875 

This manuscript of the year 1875, written 
before Stevenson had ever been on the ocean, 
may have been composed (as ^^the big billows" 
indicate) during a very rough crossing be- 
tween England and France; or in a reminis- 
cent mood, it may have been written on terra 
firma. It is in any event a very notable little 
manuscript, and most probably an attempt to- 
wards that style where prose takes on the move- 
ment of poetry. Without such an assump- 
tion we come to the most singular bit of writ- 
ing in all of Stevenson — a piece of prose that 
makes a perfect example of vers libre. To 
indicate what a poem Stevenson (whether un- 
consciously or not) wrote in this prose piece, 
the text is given in the following pages, first in 
its original arrangement, and then divided 
into lines of verse. It should be added that 
Stevenson had been acquainted with the work 
of Walt Whitman for some years, the Leaves 
of Grass having, as he said, ''tumbled the 
world upside down" for him. 



G. S. H. 



[81] 



A NOTE AT SEA 

In the hollow bowels of the ship I hear the 
ponderous engines pant and trample. The 
basin gasps and baulks like an uneasy sleep- 
er, and I hear the broad bows tilt with the big 
billows, and the hollow bosom boom against 
solid walls of water, and the great sprays 
scourge the deck. Forward I go in darkness 
with all this turmoil about me. And yet I 
know that on deck — (And the whole ship 
plunges and leaps and sinks wildly forward 
into the dark) the white moon lays her light 
on the black sea, and here and there along the 
faint primrose rim of sky faint stars and sea 
lights shine. All is so quiet about us; and yet 
here in the dark I lie besieged by ghostly and 
solemn noises. The engine goes with tiny 
trochees. The long ship makes on the billows 
a mad barbaric rhythm. The basin gasps 
when it suits it. My heart beats and toils in 
the dark midparts of my body; like as the en- 
gine in the ship, my brain toils. 



[82] 



A NOTE AT SEA 

In the hollow bowels of the ship, 

I hear the ponderous engines pant and trample. 

The basin gasps and baulks 

Like an uneasy sleeper. 

And I hear the broad bows tilt with the big bil- 
lows, 

And the hollow bosom boom against solid walls 
of water. 

And the great sprays scourge the deck. 

Forward I go in darkness with all this turmoil 
about me. 

And yet I know that on deck — 

(And the whole ship plunges and leaps 

And sinks wildly forward into the dark) — 

The white moon lays her light 

On the black sea. 

And here and there 

Along the faint primrose rim of sky 

Faint stars and sea lights shine. 

All is so quiet about us ; 

And yet here in the dark I lie besieged 

By ghostly and solemn noises. 

The engine goes with tiny trochees. 

The long ship makes on the billows a mad barbaric 
rhythm. 

The basin gasps when it suits it. 

[83] 



My heart beats and toils in the dark midparts of 

my body; 
Like as the engine in the ship, 
My brain toils. 



[84] 



A NIGHT IN FRANCE— 1875 

There can be little question of unconscious 
use of metre in the following manuscript, or in 
the one immediately preceding, entitled "A 
Note at Sea;" and the identity of handwriting 
and of paper (French blue tinted paper, com- 
ing from a notebook or sketchbook such as 
was in vogue among the artists of France of 
those days for their pencil drawings) seems to 
establish the place of composition as Fontaine- 
bleau, where Stevenson in company with his 
cousin Robert Alan Stevenson was engaged in 
the study of various forms of verse in the 
spring of 1875. This manuscript is not in the 
style of Stevenson's prose, although, like so 
much of his writing, it is, at its close, full of 
his love for Scotland. It is manifestly an ex- 
periment in metrical prose, and the success at- 
tained is, some will think, far beyond that 
achieved by Blackmore in passages of a some- 
what similar nature in Lorna Doone, Here 
again we have an instance of vers lihre by 
Stevenson (long before this kind of poetry had 
come into exaggerated vogue), as the reader 
can readily determine for himself if he will 

[85] 



rearrange the piece into loosely metrical form, 
following the method just employed with "A 
Note at Sea." 

G. S. H. 



[86] 



A NIGHT IN FRANCE 

In remote thickets toward afternoon, when 
the wind sounds now and again in the distance, 
and the butterflies are sown by faint airs here 
and there like thistledown (sown and carried 
away again by the faint airs like thistle- 
down) — 

The perfect southern moonlight fills the 
great night; along the coast the bare peaks 
faint and dwindle against the intense blue sky; 
and far up on the glimmering mountain sides 
the dark woods design their big full shapes in 
black fantastic profile. The sea trembles with 
light; white hotels and villas show lit win- 
dows far along the curved beach, and from 
above envy the silent stars. The strange night 
sky endues itself in monstrous space over all, 
the large moon beams forward. The still 
trees stand in relief aloof, one from the other 
with the light all about them, naked, bare, in 
the moonlight. 

Up in the room the piano sounds and into 
the southern night, note follows note, chord 
follows chord, in quaint, sad, northland ca- 
dence. Do not the still trees wonder, and the 

[87] 



flat bright sea, and the lonely glimmering hill- 
tops far withdrawn into the purple sky? For 
this is no squeak of southern fife, no light 
melody of provencal farandole; to these airs, 
brown feet never tripped on the w^arm earth, 
nor boatman cheered his way across deep mid- 
land waters. Wild and shrill, ring out the 
reels. Dunbarton drums beat bonny. The 
wind sounds over the rainy moorland; Wan- 
dering Willie is far from home. Clear sad 
voices sing in the gray dawn sadly; for a coun- 
try made desolate, for the bold silver that shall 
no more clatter forth in pay, and the good 
King that shall come home no more. The 
sun sets behind Ben Ledi. Macleod's wiz- 
ard flag sallies from the gray castle. Faint 
and fair in the misty summer afternoon, reach 
out the purple braes, where the soft cloud 
shadows linger and dwindle. At home by the 
ingle the goodwife darns her goodman's gray 
b reeks. And my love up in the north is like 
the red red rose. 

O sound of the wind among my own bleak 
hills! the snow and the cold, and the hard thin 
faces of steadfast serious people. The boats 
go out at even, under the moon; sail by sail 

[88] 



they spread on the great uneven sea; at morn, 
in the rain plains, boat by boat comes back 
with its glittering burthen. 



[89] 



DRAFT OF A PREFACE FOR 
'TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY"— 1879 

The first paragraph of the following paper 
is its only strictly unpublished part. The sub- 
stance of the rest will be found, in a consider- 
ably altered form, in that chapter of Travels 
with a Donkey^ entitled '^A Night Among the 
Pines." The entire manuscript is here print- 
ed as evidence that, although the original edi- 
tion of 1879, and later editions of Travels 
with a Donkey^ were issued w^ithout any pre- 
face, save the initial brief letter to Sidney Col- 
vin, the author probably had, as so often in 
other instances, a preface in mind; and then 
changing his intention included a portion of 
the preface matter in the text of his story. 
The MS. has the appearance of being incom- 
plete, but we are unable to ascertain whether 
Stevenson finished it, or if he did finish it, 
what became of the remainder. However, 
since it is an interesting piece, and seems to be 
complete as far as it goes, we give it as it ap- 
pears in Mr. Peabody's draft of the MS. — 



[91] 



PREFACE FOR ^TRAVELS WITH A 
DONKEY" 

The journey which this little book is to nar- 
rate, was very agreeable and fortunate. After 
a few rough experiences, my donkey led me 
into a country of great natural amenity. Un- 
usual and pleasant characters and incidents, 
trifling in themselves, but yet delightful to ex- 
perience, met me continually as I went. 

To those who sleep within thick walls, 
blindfolded with curtains, and roofed in from 
the influences of heaven, night is one black 
and uneventful gulf of sleep. But in the open 
world, under the stars and dews, night, like 
day, passes through lively vicissitudes, and the 
passing hours are marked by changes on the 
face of Nature. The forest breathes out new 
perfumes; stars rise and set; the company of 
heaven by progressive evolutions counts time's 
progress like a clock. And there is one cheer- 
ful hour towards morning, unknown to those 
who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influ- 
ence goes abroad over the sleeping hemi- 
sphere. It is then that the cock first crows, 
not this time to announce the dawn, but like 

[92] 



a cheerful watchman speeding the wane of 
night. Cattle awake in the meadows; sheep 
on the hillside take a midnight meal and lie 
down to sleep again in a fresh lair. And 
homeless men, who have lain down with the 
fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the 
beauty of the night. At what inaudible sum- 
mons, by what gentle touch of Nature, are all 
those sleepers thus recalled in the same hour 
to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, 
or do we share a thrill of mother earth below 
our resting bodies? But however it comes, 
those who sleep afield are disturbed in their 
slumber, "that they may the better and more 
sensibly relish it;" they are given a moment to 
look upon the stars, and they share the secret 
impulse with all outdoor creatures in their 
neighborhood. When that moment overtook 
me among the pines, I wakened thirsty. Even 
shepherds and old country folk, who are 
the deepest read in such arcana, have not a 
guess as to the means or purpose of this night- 
ly resurrection. Towards two in the morn- 
ing, they declare, the thing takes place; and 
know nor inquire farther. And at least it is 
a pleasant incident. And there is a special 

[93] 



pleasure for some minds in the reflection that 
we share this impulse with all outdoor crea- 
tures in our neighborhood, and are become, 
for the time being, a mere kindly animal and 
a sheep of Nature's flock. 



It is an excellent thing to speak; and yet it 
is good to be sometimes silent. I am often 
surprised that the blind are not greater think- 
ers, for they dwell in a natural seclusion and 
the current of their thought is not perpetually 
interrupted and diverted by the eyes. 



[94] 



PROTEST ON BEHALF OF BOER 
INDEPENDENCE— 1881 

In 1880 war began between Great Britain 
and the Boers, despite the fact that Gladstone 
(who had regarded England's attitude to- 
wards the independence of the latter as mor- 
ally iniquitous) had in April become Prime 
Minister. The Proclamation of the South 
African Republic in December, with Kruger, 
Pretorious and Joubert as a triumvirate, to 
run the new government, was followed by nu- 
merous clashes. On February 26, 1881, Sir 
George Colley, the British High Commis- 
sioner of South East Africa, led the British 
forces up Majuba Hill, a mountain of strate- 
gic importance near the Transvaal border. 
The next day the British were routed by the 
Boers, commanded by Joubert, the hill was 
captured and Sir George Colley slain in com- 
bat. This defeat stung and enraged a great 
part of England, but to some Englishmen it 
brought home the determination of the Boers, 
and even in the hour of humiliation they pon- 
dered the folly of freeborn British seeking to 
deprive the freeborn Dutch of independence 

[95] 



in their internal affairs. On the 6th of March 
a truce was concluded, and a fortnight later 
terms of peace were arranged, allowing for 
entire internal self-government under British 
sovereignty; a status which lasted until the 
Second Boer War of 1899-1900. 

It was during the weeks intervening be- 
tween the British defeat and the conclusion of 
the terms of peace, that Stevenson, then at 
Davos, drafted, in a notebook that he used 
over a period of many years, the piece here 
printed. While it may have been written 
with some high British official in mind, the 
"Sir" of the second sentence is more probably 
the editor of the Times or some other English 
newspaper. Only a thorough search of press 
files can absolutely establish whether (per- 
haps using a nom-de-plume) Stevenson went 
further than this preliminary draft; but as no 
mention of such a letter appears in any work 
relating to Stevenson, it seems to have remain- 
ed unpublished until now. Its nobility of 
spirit is manifest, and it is probably in the 
final analysis, the highest expression of true 
patriotism in all of Stevenson's writings. 

G. S. H. 

[96] 









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PROTEST ON BEHALF OF BOER 
INDEPENDENCE— 1881 

I was a Jingo when Jingoism was in sea- 
son, and I own I pall myself still of like pas- 
sions with the Jingo. But, sir, it may be pos- 
sible for you to understand that a man may be 
a Jingo and yet a man ; that he may have been 
a Jingo from a sense, perhaps mistaken, of 
the obligations, the greatness and the danger 
of his native land, and not from any brutal 
greed of aggrandisement or cheap love of 
drums and regimental columns. A man may 
love these also, and be honest. But there often 
comes a time and the changes of circum- 
stance, when a man is pleased to have held 
certain opinions in the past, that he may de- 
nounce them with the more authority in the 
present. I was not ashamed to be the coun- 
tryman of Jingoes; but I am beginning to 
grow ashamed of being of the kin of those who 
are now fighting — I should rather say, who 
are now sending brave men to fight — in this 
unmanly Transvaal war. It is neither easy 
nor needful to justify these changes of opin- 
ion. We all awake somewhat late to a sense 

[973 



of what is just; and it is ordinarily by some- 
thing merely circumstantial that the sense is 
wakened. A man may have been right or 
wrong before, but it adds some weight to his 
intense conviction if his former thoughts were 
of a different and even contrary spirit. Now, 
sir, I am at the present hour — in company, I 
am sure, with all the most honourable and 
considerate of my countrymen — literally 
grilling in my own blood about this wicked 
business. It is no affair of ours if the Boers 
are capable of self government or not; we 
have made it sufficiently plain to Europe of 
late days that we ourselves are not as a whole 
the most harmonious nation upon earth. That 
Colley and all his brave fellows are gone for- 
ever, that we have be.en beaten, and fairly 
beaten, by the stalwart little state are not, to 
my mind, arguments for any prolongation of 
the war, but for an instant, honourable sub- 
mission. We are in the wrong, or all that we 
profess is false; blood has been shed, glory 
lost, and I fear, honour also. But if any hon- 
our yet remains, or any chivalry, that is cer- 
tainly the only chivalrous or honourable 
course, for the strong to accept his buffet and 

[98] 



do justice, already tardy, to the weak whom he 
has misused and who has so crushingly re- 
torted. Another Majuba hill, with the re- 
sult reversed, and we shall treat, I hear; but 
that may be long of coming; and in the mean- 
while, many of our poor soldiers — many of 
them true patriots — must fall. There may 
come a time in the history of England — for 
that is not yet concluded — when she also 
shall come to be oppressed by some big neigh- 
bor; and if I may not say there is a God in 
heaven, I may say at least there is a justice in 
the chain of causes that shall make England 
drain a bucket of her best blood for every 
drop she now exacts from the Transvaal. As 
if, sir, there were any prestige like the pres- 
tige of being just; or any generosity like that 
of owning and repairing an injustice; as if, in 
this troubled time, and with all our fair [?] 
and plucky history, there were any course left 
to this nation but to hold back the sword of 
vengeance and bare the head to that state, pos- 
sibly enough misguided, whom we have tried 
ineffectually to brutalisel 



[99] 



THE STORY OF A RECLUSE 

(1885?) 

This story, which Stevenson never com- 
pleted, is a remarkably interesting fragment. 
It relates the adventures of a young man, the 
son of an Edinburgh minister, who after a 
night of heavy drinking finds himself in a 
woman's bed. Though this is perhaps a piece 
of fiction, there are points in it indicating that 
Stevenson had himself in mind. He had his 
hours of dissipation in the early Edinburgh 
days, and when he makes the hero of the tale 
a medical student with a strict, religious 
father he was probably thinking of himself as 
a law student, with a similar parent. 

Both the character of the handwriting and 
the style of the story lead to the belief that 
Sevenson wrote this tale about the year 1885. 



[lOl] 



THE STORY OF A RECLUSE 

My father was the Rev. John Kirkwood of 
Edinburgh, a man very well known for the 
rigour of his life and the tenor of his pulpit 
ministrations. I might have been sometimes 
tempted to bless Providence for this honor- 
able origin, had not I been forced so much 
more often to deplore the harshness of my 
nurture. I have no children of my own, or 
none that I saw fit to educate, so perhaps 
speak at random; yet it appears my father 
may have been too strict. In the matter of 
pocket-money, he gave me a pittance, insuffi- 
cient for his son's position, and when, upon 
one occasion, I took the liberty to protest, he 
brought me up with this home thrust of in- 
quiry: ^'Should I give you more, Jamie, will 
you promise me it shall be spent as I should 
wish?" I did not answer quickly, but when 
I did, it was truly: "No," said I. He gave 
an impatient jostle of his shoulders, and turn- 
ed his face to the study fire, as though to hide 
his feelings from his son. Today, however, 
they are very clear to me; and I know how he 
was one part delighted with my candour, and 

[ I02 ] 



three parts revolted by the cynicism of my 
confession. I went from the room ere he had 
answered in any form of speech; and I went, 
I must acknowledge, in despair. I was then 
two and twenty years of age, a medical stu- 
dent of the University, already somewhat in- 
volved with debt, and already more or less 
(although I can scarce tell how) used to costly 
dissipations. I had a few shillings in my 
pocket; in a billiard room in St. Andrews 
Street I had shortly quadrupled this amount 
at pyramids, and the billiard room being al- 
most next door a certain betting agency, I 
staked the amount on the hazard of a race. 
At about five in the afternoon of the next day, 
I was the possessor of some thirty pounds — 
six times as much as I had ever dreamed of 
spending. I was not a bad young man, al- 
though a little loose. I may have been merry 
and lazy; until that cursed night, I had never 
known what it was to be overpowered with 
drink; so it is possible that I was overpower- 
ed the more completely. I have never clear- 
ly been aware of where I went or what I did, 
or of how long a time elapsed, till my awak- 
ening. The night was dry, dark and cold; 

[ 103] 



the lamps and the clean pavements and bright 
stars delighted me; I went before me with a 
baseless exultation in my soul, singing, danc- 
ing, wavering in my gait with the most airy 
inconsequence, and all at once at the corner of 
a street, which I can still dimly recall, the 
light of my reason went out and the thread of 
memory was broken. 

I came to myself in bed, whether it was 
that night or the next I have never known, 
only the thirty pounds were gone! I had cer- 
tainly slept some while, for I was sober; it 
was not yet day, for I was aware through my 
half closed eyelids of the light of a gas jet; 
and I had undressed, for I lay in linen. Some 
little time, my mind hung upon the brink of 
consciousness; and then with a start of recol- 
lection, recalling the beastly state to which I 
had reduced myself, and my father's strait- 
laced opinions and conspicuous position, I sat 
suddenly up in bed. As I did so, some sort 
of hamper tore apart about my waist; I looked 
down and saw, instead of my night-shirt, a 
woman's chemise copiously laced about the 
sleeves and bosom. I sprang to my feet, 
turned, and saw myself in a cheval glass. 

[ 104 ] 



The thing fell but a little lower than my knees 
it was of a smooth and soft fabric; the lace 
very fine, the sleeves half way to my elbow. 
The room was of a piece ; the table well sup- 
plied with necessaries of the toilet; female 
dresses hanging upon nails; a wardrobe of 
some light varnished wood against the wall; 
a foot bath in the corner. It was not my 
night-shirt; it was not my room ; and yet by its 
shape and the position of the window, I saw 
it exactly corresponded with mine; and that 
the house in which I found myself must be the 
counterpart of my father's. On the floor in a 
heap lay my clothes as I had taken them off; 
on the table my pass-key, which I perfectly 
recognized. The same architect, employing 
the same locksmith, had built two identical 
houses and had them fitted with identical 
locks; in some drunken aberration I had mis- 
taken the door, stumbled into the wrong house, 
mounted to the wrong room and sottishly gone 
to sleep in the bed of some young lady. I hur- 
ried into my clothes, quaking, and opened 
the door. 

So far it was as I supposed; the stair, the 
very paint was of the same design as at my 

[105] 



father's, only instead of the cloistral quiet 
which was perennial at home, there rose up to 
my ears the sound of empty laughter and un- 
steady voices. I bent over the rail, and look- 
ing down and listening, when a door opened 
below, the voices reached me clearer. I 
heard more than one cry ''good night;" and 
w^ith a natural instinct, I whipped back into 
the room I had just left and closed the door 
behind me. 

A light step drew rapidly nearer on the 
stair; fear took hold of me, lest I should be 
detected, and I had scarce slipped behind the 
door, when it opened and there entered a girl 
of about my own age, in evening dress, black 
of hair, her shoulders naked, a rose in her 
bosom. She paused as she came in, and sigh- 
ed; with her back still turned to me, she 
closed the door, moved toward the glass, and 
looked for awhile vtry seriously at her own 
image. Once more she sighed, and as if with 
a sudden impatience, unclasped her bodice. 

Up to that moment, I had not so much as 
formed a thought; but then it seemed to me 
that I was bound to interfere. ''I beg your 
pardon — " I began, and paused. 
[io6] 



She turned and faced me without a word; 
bewilderment, growing surprise, a sudden an- 
ger, followed one another on her countenance. 
''What on earth — " said she, and paused too. 

"Madam," I said, ''for the love of God, 
make no mistake. I am no thief, and I give 
you my word I am a gentleman. I do not 
know where I am; I have been vilely drunken 
— that is my paltry confession. It seems that 
your house is built like mine, that my pass- 
key opens your lock, and that your room is 
similarly situate to mine. How or when I 
came here, the Lord knows; but I awakened 
in your bed five minutes since — and here I 
am. It is ruin to me if I am found; if you 
can help me out, you will save a fellow from a 
dreadful mess; if you can't — or won't — God 
help me." 

"I have never seen you before," she said. 
"You are none of Manton's friends." 

"I never even heard of Manton," said I. "I 
tell you I don't know where I am. I thought 

I was in Street, No. 15 — Rev. Dr. 

Kirkwood's, that is my father." 

"You are streets away from that," she said; 

[ 107 ] 



"You are in the Grange, at Manton Jamie- 
son's. You are not fooling me?" 

I said I was not. "And I have torn your 
night-shirt," cried I. 

She picked it up, and suddenly laughed, 
her brow for the first time becoming cleared 
of suspicion. "Well," she said, "This is not 
like a thief. But how could you have got in 
such a state?" 

"Oh!" replied I, "the great affair is not to 
get in such a state again." 

"We must get you smuggled out," said she. 
"Can you get out of the window?" 

I went over and looked; it was too high. 
"Not from this window," I replied, "it will 
have to be the door." 

"The trouble is that Manton's friends — " 
she began, "they play roulette and sometimes 
stay late ; and the sooner you are gone, the bet- 
ter. Manton must not see you." 

"For God's sake, not!" I cried. 

"I was not thinking of you in the least," 
she said; "I was thinking of myself."^ 

1 At this point Stevenson's MS. ends. Why he left his hero 
in such a bewildering predicament, or how he intended to ex- 
tricate him, must forever remain a matter of conjecture. But 
since it was not Stevenson's habit to desert his friends in time 

[io8] 



["A very natural instinct," I said, "but 
surely you understand that my escape from 
this place is as much a matter of your safety 
as it is mine. You must admit that although 
we both know that I am an unwelcome intrud- 
er here, it would be no less difficult for you to 
convince Manton of that fact than it is for me 
to understand how I got here." 

She looked almost bewitching, even in her 
distress, as she stood wringing her hands and 
glancing wildly about, now at me, now at the 
door, then at the opposite window, which, 
apart from the door, appeared to be the only 
avenue of escape. 

"Who is Manton, and what is he to you?" 
I ventured. But without answering she ran to 

of need, I assume that he must have forgotten his friend Kirk- 
wood, and that his spirit could therefore take no offense at hav- 
ing this unlucky young man rescued from a highly precarious 
situation, in which he must otherwise be doomed to remain for 
all time; a situation, moreover, involving not only great dan- 
ger to himself but much painful anxiety to his ecclesiastical 
parent. 

Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of assuming the office of 
foster godfather, and of interposing in his behalf, even at the 
risk of the consequences that usually attend outsiders who pre- 
sume to meddle in family affairs. On the theory that we may 
help a drunken man out of the gutter and send him home with- 
out incurring the obligation of marrj-ing him off and looking 
after him the balance of his life, I have liberated the present 
victim of untoward circumstances and sent him home to shift 
for himself without assuming further responsibility, especially 
since he was Stevenson's hero, not mine. — H. H. H. 

[109] 



the door, and as she stood listening her coun- 
tenance betokened approaching danger, even 
before she spoke. "He's coming up the 
stairs!'' she whispered hoarsely. "You 7nust 
get out, quick, quick! He'll kill you!" 

"Get out — how? Would you have me jump 
out the window to a certain death on the pave- 
ment below?" 

''Yes, yes, anything rather than have him 
find you here," she said, waving one hand 
frantically behind her while with the other 
she grasped the latch. I being the one at 
fault, there seemed but one alternative left to 
me. 

"Very well, so be it," said I. "Lock the 
door till I can gather up my things, and I'll 
take the plunge. It's almost certain death, 
but at least you will be saved." She turned 
the key and stood with her back to the door 
while I scurried about gathering up my shoes, 
hat, and other articles. "Good bye, and good 
luck to you," I whispered over my shoulder 
as I made toward the window. 

"No, no — wait!" she called. "I can't let 
you do that; it will be sure death. I could 
never forgive myself for being such a coward. 

[no] 



We are both innocent, and surely God will 
provide some other way." 

I confess the argument appealed to me, and 
it required no further coaxing to divert me 
from my rash purpose. As we stood looking 
at each other I thought her eyes seemed kinder 
than before. At first her one concern had been 
for her own safety, but now she had called me 
back and she seemed to be racking her brain 
for a plan whereby I might be saved as well 
as herself. 

"You are no coward," I said; and as I spoke 
we heard heavy footsteps approaching in the 
hall. She stared at me, her eyes wide with 
anxiety and fear. Then glancing down at my 
stockinged feet, she caught her breath quickly 
and her countenance lightened as if by a sud- 
den inspiration. 

"Here, quick!" she said. "Stand by this 
door. There's a window on the second floor," 
she whispered, "two flights down — to the 
right, to the right, as you go out! When he 
comes in, you dash out, down the stairs, and 
out the window." 

I obeyed involuntarily, and as I was about 
to remonstrate that I could not escape unseen, 

[III] 



she unlocked the door, then with the agility of 
a panther she sprang to the gas jet and extin- 
guished the light. Just as the door opened I 
heard her utter a piercing scream in the dark- 
ness, from the direction of the window. 

''Help! help! Quick, Manton!" she shout- 
ed, as she turned over some article of furni- 
ture, which sounded like a piano falling. In 
the same instant Manton's bulky form brushed 
past me as he lunged in through the darkness; 
and no sooner had he entered than I slipped 
out into the unlighted hall. As I was feeling 
my way along towards the stairs I heard the 
girl cry out, — ''There's a man in my room — 
a burglar, a thief — look under the bed! Lock 
the door and light the gas, quick!" 

After some difficulty with the stairs and 
landings I accomplished my descent without 
serious mishap, and on reaching the second 
floor I groped along the dark hallway in 
search of the window, which at length I found, 
and by good fortune it happened not to be 
locked. I opened it, peered cautiously out 
into the darkness and was grateful to find that 
it opened upon a garden in the rear. Out I 
plunged, and landed sprawling in the midst 

[112] 



of what seemed to be a flower bed. In a mo- 
ment I was on my feet and finding that a 
sprained wrist was the only painful result of 
my awkward landing, I scaled the garden wall 
and made my way for a short distance under 
cover of its shadow, when all at once I found 
myself in the middle of a familiar street, where 
I stood hesitating for a moment, my shoes and 
other paraphernalia still clutched tightly un- 
der my arm. For the first time, the situation 
struck me as being decidedly ludicrous, and I 
laughed outright. '^It would make a good 
story," I thought as I slipped on my shoes and 
strode toward home, determined never to get 
drunk again.] 



["3] 



TUTUILA-I89I 

At Tutuila, a South Sea Island which became 
a portion of the territon- of the United States, 
Stevenson spent some three weeks early in 
1 891, and his experiences among those distant 
Samoans were interestingly set forth in a man- 
uscript which he entitled ''Tutuila." A few 
random excerpts from this highly important 
manuscript were used by Graham Balfour in 
his ''Life" of Stevenson (edition of 1901, Vol- 
ume 2, Page 96), but approximately three- 
quarters of the text — and by far the most in- 
teresting part, relating to the inhabitants — w^as 
left entirely unpublished, and the whole piece 
is now for the first time given in its complete- 
ness. 

It is quite the most imponant and engaging 
piece descriptive of Stevenson's travels that 
has appeared posthumously, especially in view 
of the present widespread interest in the South 
Sea Islands. 



[115] 



TUTUILA 

The island at its highest point is nearly sev- 
ered in two by the long elbowed harbour, 
about half a mile in width, cased in abrupt 
mountain-sides. The tongue of water sleeps 
here in perfect quiet, and laps around its con- 
tinent with the flapping wavelets of a lake. 
The wind passes overhead; day and night, the 
scroll of trade-wind clouds is unrolled across 
the sky, and now in vast sculptured masses, 
now in a thin drift of debris, singular shapes 
of things, protracted and deformed beasts and 
trees and heads and torsos of old marbles, 
changing, fainting and vanishing even as they 
flee. Below, meanwhile, the harbour lies un- 
shaken, and laps idly on its margin; its color 
is green like a forest pool, bright in the shal- 
lows, dark in the midst with the reflected sides 
of w^oody mountains. At times a flicker of 
silver breaks the uniformity, miniature w^hite- 
caps flashing and disappearing on the sombre 
ground; to see it you might think the wind 
was treading on and tossing the flat water; but 
not so — the harbour lies unshaken, and the 
flickering is that of fishes. 

Right in the wind's eye and right without 
[ii6] 



the dawn a conspicuous mountain stands, de- 
signed like an old fort or castle, with naked, 
clifYy sides, and a green head. In the peep of 
the day, the mass is outlined dimly; as the 
east fires, the sharpness of the silhouette grows 
definite; and through all the chinks of the high 
wood, the red looks through, like coals 
through a grate. 

From the other end of the harbour and at 
the other extreme of the day, when the sun is 
down and the night beginning, and colors and 
shapes at the sea level are already compound- 
ed in the grayness of the dusk, the same peak 
retains for some time a tinge of phantom rose. 
The so-called hurricane that recently made 
Samoa famous and bestrewed the coasts of 
Ufalu with the bodies of w^hite seamen, al- 
though it spared Pagopago, raged about the 
summit of Pioa; the w^oods were stripped in 
one night of all their foliage, and the summit 
on the morrow stood as if struck by a sudden 
Autumn. Thus the hill, although not under 
1600 feet by measurement, stands like a cen- 
terpiece to its surroundings and is the stage 
and herald of changes in the weather. Upon 
its top squalls congregate, take strange shapes 

[117] 



and seem to linger; thence suddenly descend 
in the form of a white veil ; the surface of the 
lake is seen to whiten under the verberation of 
the rain ; the whiteness approaches more swift- 
ly than the flight of birds ; and in a moment 
the walls rattle and the roof resounds under 
the squall. No sooner come than gone; a 
moment more and the sun smiles again upon 
the dripping forests. 

Last night I was awakened before midnight 
by the ship rats which infest the shores and 
invade the houses, incredible for numbers and 
boldness. I went to the water's edge; the 
moon was at the zenith; vast fleecy clouds 
were traveling overhead, their borders frayed 
and extended as usual in fantastic arms and 
promontories. The level of their flight is not 
really high ; it only seems so. The trade-wind, 
although so strong in current, is but a shallow 
stream, and it is common to see, beyond and 
above its carry, other clouds faring on other 
and higher winds. As I looked, the skirt of a 
cloud touched upon the summit of Pioa and 
seemed to hang and gather there, and darken 
as it hung. I knew the climate, fled to shelter, 
and was scarce laid down again upon the mat 

[ii8] 



before the squall burst. In its decline I heard 
the sound of a great bell rung at a distance; I 
did not think there had been a bell upon the 
island. I thought the hour a strange one for 
the ringing; but I had no doubt it was being 
rung on the other side at the Catholic mission, 
and lay there listening, and thinking, and try- 
ing to remember which of the bells of Edin- 
burgh sounded the same note. It stopped al- 
most with the squall. Some half an hour af- 
terwards another squall struck upon the house 
and spouted awhile from the gutters of the 
corrugated roof; and again, with its decline, 
the bell began to sound from the same dis- 
tance. Then I laughed at myself, and this 
bell resolved into an eavesdrop falling on a 
tin close by my head. All night the blows 
continued at brief intervals. Morning came, 
and showed mists on all the mountain-tops, a 
gray and yellow dawn, a fresh accumulation 
of rain imminent on the summit of Pioa, and 
the whole harbour scene stripped of its tropic 
coloring, and wearing the appearance of a 
Scottish loch. 

And not long after, as I was writing on this 
page, sure enough, from the far shore a bell 

["9] 



began indeed to ring. It has but just ceased; 
boats have been passing the harbour in the 
showers, the congregation is now within, and 
the mass begun. How many different stories 
are told by that drum of tempered iron! To 
the natives, a new, strange, outlandish theory; 
to us of Europe, redolent of home; in the ears 
of the priests, calling up memories of French 
and Flemish cities, and perhaps some carved 
cathedral, and the pomp of celebrations; in 
mine, talking of the gray metropolis of the 
north, of a certain village on a stream, of re- 
mote churches, rustic congregations, and of 
vanished faces and silent tongues. 

Long ago, say the natives, the houses were 
continuous around the harbour; they are now 
shrunk into some half a dozen isolated ham- 
lets; and at night it is only here and there 
around the shores that a light twinkles. En- 
demic war, the touch of the white, perhaps 
some climacteric age has thus reduced the 
denizens. The main village is at the head of 
the harbour and looks straight up the greatest 
length to Pioa. At the upper end the chief 
lives, his village commanding a long view of 
the harbor. Thither we went at evening in 

[120] 



the consul's boat. A path girdles the water 
side, a rude enough causeway, which falls 
down if you sit upon its margin, yet makes 
passage easy. The hill ascends abruptly and 
makes a rough edge of forest in the sky; the 
path, as it follows on by promontory and re- 
cess, now plunges you in breathless heat, now 
brings you forth in a broad draught of air; 
from the hottest corner of a sun patch of 
sugarcane, you may look but a little way up 
the hill and see whirling fans of palm; from 
the bottom of some sandy cove, where the path 
is overhung with rocks and embowered in 
overhanging trees, you may look but a little 
forth and see the leaves toss in the breeze in 
the next cape. This perpetual out and in, and 
change of scene and climate, entertains the 
mind. At times, besides, the mountain opens 
and you may look up the devious narrow cleft 
of a stream until it winds from sight; at times 
on the long flat sands you will see women 
fishing, or they may wade ashore, their wet 
raiment clinging to their stalwart figures, and 
as you pass on the narrow causeway, stand 
knee-deep and pass you a salutation; or else a 
canoe goes by with some gay dresses; or two 

[I2I] 



or three whaleboats, with their lint-white 
sails, go skimming by upon a race. The last 
cape of the main harbour is at Goat Island; 
when you turn it you see the heads, the white 
surf fl3'ing, and the open ocean lying blue be- 
tween. A long beach runs here from scat- 
tered houses; one of them falling in ruins 
marks the site of a decayed village. Two 
streams here run into the sea; inconsiderable 
mounds, easy to be overleapt such as can alone 
grow up in an isle so narrow, steep and 
crooked. Here upon the beach we meet a 
boy, an old friend and satellite, who loves to 
sit with us on the balcony; he joins himself to 
us and presently he is carr>^ing my wet lava- 
lava and towel. At the far end of the beach, 
beyond the houses, we sat on the sand, and with 
the common instinct of all ages and races of 
man, elderly white folk, an eight-year-old 
Samoan boy began to dig away the sand. 
Mana is the boy's name; he is a rather sickly, 
shrewd, gentlemanly creature whose pleasant 
manners have engaged us heretofore. The 
design of a ship is nothing new to us; on the 
same walk we had already passed an elaborate 
section of a ship of war showing the screw 

[ 122] 



and the smoke stack descending to the keel. 
But Mana's ship is particularly intended to 
be ours, and his representation is recommend- 
ed to our notice by portraits of ourselves. 
Here is the judge, here is the land-surveyor 
and here is the Writer of Tales — and where 
is Mana? Mana was immediately added at 
the masthead — ''at w^ork" — the artist added 
proudly. Such pictures and such talk are 
common to all races at that age ; but now Mana 
begins to model the human figure in relief, 
and it was not long before the precocious 
youth had left us speechless, or leaves me rath- 
er without words to tell of what he drew and 
said. Not so much that he proved himself an 
indecent designer, is remarkable, but that he 
had no shame or fear before his elders. I 
have seen the like done by children little older 
in what is called God-fearing England; but I 
can not remember that they would have ex- 
hibited their works with confidence. 

The overhanging rock and tree, the strong 
smell of brine as you turn it, the louder sound 
not of the w^ind only, but of the sea. At 
morning the birds from either hand of the 
harbour. 

[123] 



The Tanpo Cleopatra, such was the name 
we gave her, as her face and bearing claimed 
for her, was not by rights a Tanpo, for she 
was married, and the leader in the village 
dance must be a maid. But the Tanpo elect 
was young, a church member and not suffered 
to join in the dances, so that the reason of her 
election seemed to me far from obvious, and 
Cleop. continued to officiate. A nobler wo- 
man it is scarce possible to conceive, being 
shaped like a divinity upon huge lines, and 
with a countenance of an Egyptian cast and 
with an expression of dignity and even scorn 
that well became her head and her strange 
flattened profile. For the dance, she wore 
on her head a sort of coronet that gave her the 
air of a drawing room at home, and vastly set 
ofif her beauty. The rest of her costume, the 
red necklaces, the kilt of fine mat, the little 
tabard of transparent net that hung back and 
front upon her shoulders, her great bare arms 
and legs, were pure Samoan, and rather con- 
trasted with the effect of the drawing room 
coronet. She sat in the midst, two girls on 
one side of her, three on the other; the six 
w^ere all trained exquisitely, their movements 

[124] 



graceful in themselves and exquisitely timid. 
The reaching of arms I never saw so happily 
significant, and the strange trick of Cleop. to 
sing with her eyes shut and a curious, arrogant 
smile upon her face added a note of mystery 
to the accustomed business. The house was 
full of Samoan spectators, children of all ages 
among others, who soon began to join in the 
singing and beat time. When the indecent 
part came it was singular to look about on all 
these shaven heads of children wagging and 
their little hands clapping the tattoo to such 
an unsuitable and ugly business. I was sorry 
to have Cleop. taking part in such a show, 
though her part was the more decent, though 
the principal. No sense of shame in this race 
is the word of the superficial, but the point of 
the indecent dance is to trifle with the sense 
of shame; and that very particularity that the 
chief actor should be a maid further discloses 
the corrupt element which has created and so 
much loves this diversion; for it is useless to 
speak, the Samoan loves the business like pie. 
In such an atmosphere our young companion 
had grown up. 

Thursday about nine on board the Nukuno- 

[125] 



no — the judge, Tusitala, Lloyd, Swedish cap- 
tain. Nova Scotian mate (with Nova Scotian 
stories) Chinese cook, black French cook from 
Bourbon, one hireling, one Tangan half caste, 
one Samoan half caste interpreter, one black 
boy. Hard work to get under way, beating 
to and fro under Pioa across the great cool 
languid gush of sea air through the harbour 
mouth and the vast, oily-backed swells. The 
surf on the east end made wonderful water- 
works. As we made one bound just inside it, 
we made a breach on Whale Rock, the head of 
it toppled and fell, the green sides of the har- 
bour echoed with the report, and the sea rose 
all about the rock like the sides of a bowl. 
When we got outside at last the blow holes 
along the coast were spouting high, the spray 
of the surf hung in air and blew up the moun- 
tains; the Nukunono soared up and down like 
a sea bird; but the breeze fell dead. Pioa 
and the harbour had been making a little in- 
tricate belt of weather for themselves; half a 
mile outside, stagnation ruled and deepened. 
The clouds blackened towards afternoon, and 
standing round the horizon in long cold rows 
of pillars, hills and statues, without motion, 

[126] 



the schooner slumbered, and kept the skipper 
awake by threatening to go on the other tack. 
Long ere we came out of the harbour the cook, 
the gallant, diplomatic, admired, lay prostrate 
like a broken doll ; and lifted his face no long- 
er; the interpreter collapsed in turn, not whol- 
ly but to a state of genteel silence and muddle- 
ment, in which he was useless as a gnome; the 
judge, — but let us respect his ermine. Night 
fell; Pioa and Mirtie Peak stood crowned 
with clouds which were lit up at times in the 
night like fantastic electric bowls; the moon 
rose late, a ragged end of a moon brown on one 
side like burned paper; and presently the day 
began to follow her, and there was Tutuila 
blurred with a succession of fine rain showers 
and the mouth of Pagopago showing like a 
chamber full of smoke; but the sea being un- 
der an unmitigated blaze of day, and sur- 
rounded along all the visible horizon with the 
same long drawn series of frozen, windless 
cloud peaks. There is thought to be an east- 
erly set; we saw little of it; steadily we drew 
westward, the mouth of Pagopago closed, 
Mirtie Peak moved past us, past us the low 
shores landmarked with blow holes; we are 

[127] 



tossing at last off the cliffy lee end of the isle; 
and it was near noon when we decided to try 
back for Pagopago. In the afternoon this 
too dwindled out of the sphere of practical 
politics; we tossed overboard the little ship's 
boat, a couple of men were put into her; by 
common consent the cook (for whose life we 
began to entertain fears) was helped after, 
whence he fell into the stern sheets, helpless; 
and they pulled away for the harbour mouth. 
We lay and watched the sun go down, an 
alleviation anxiously expected. It sank with 
strange pomp of color, in a world of peaked 
cloud. Long after it was down, arrows of 
blue radiated upward, faded one by one, until 
at last one only lingered and grew more dark- 
ly blue up against a heaven of deeper rose; the 
sea meanwhile heaved multi-colored; here 
flaked with fire and azure, there fallen in a 
blinding pallor. The sharp peaks of the 
isle stood out against the fading heavens; they 
were of a color deep as black, and rich as 
crimson, for which we tried vainly to find a 
name; above them, every here and there, tall, 
isolated clouds stood and had characters like 
Punch and Judy puppets, tall double-faced 

[128] 



Januses, dogs begging, bears with ragged per- 
forated minarets — a singular array, designed, 
it would appear, for mirth, yet, as we beheld 
them from our heaving ship, rather striking 
awe. The dusk slowly deepened; we ran a 
light up in the fore rigging; it was our Mau- 
galai [?] lantern, the schooner (true to the 
S. S. character) had none. Presently after, 
the sound of oars was heard; it was a boat go- 
ing sharking, and from them we had the wel- 
come intelligence that our moribund cook was 
got ashore alive; and the consular boat was 
even now upon the way to rescue us. It was 
black night, there was nothing visible but the 
stars and the sharp mountains, when the sound 
of singing sprang up in the midst of the sea. 
It was not very tuneful, but heralded the ap- 
proach of the rescue party. We were on 
board with our goods and had got the boat 
clear of the dangerous and lively neighbor- 
hood of the schooner; she showed for a mo- 
ment, looking picturesque, then vanished as 
by enchantment; and we [line here is unde- 
cipherable~\ a long way in; steering for the 
priest's light by west Pioa; a long while in 
silence, broken only by one song in which our 

[ 129] 



boatmen in the reiterative native style pro- 
claimed their view that it was a bad thing for 
whites to lie with Samoans, and vice versa. 
Then suddenly the voice of the island rose; 
a sullen clamor of surf sinking again to si- 
lence, rising again louder and longer, till it 
became permanent. This solemn greeting 
moved us all extremely. Yet a long while 
before we were fairly in the jaws of the har- 
bour, of a sudden the sweet, clean smell of the 
sea was gone; there fell upon the boat instead 
a flat, acrid and rather stifling odor of damp : 
it had been raining much of the day, the 
woods were all quite moist. The starlight 
was very bright, but it showed not far; the 
immediate sea beamed plain, the hills and 
farther waters (somewhere they drenched 
along the sky) being indecipherable, and the 
harbour itself yawned before us like the mouth 
of a cave. The priest's light which had van- 
ished for a while hid by the higher [ . . . ] 
in the harbour mouth now reappeared, and we 
began to strain our eyes and interrogate our 
memories. Where was the reef? We were 
speaking low in the dark boat when of a sud- 
den, not two hundred yards away, the reef 

[130] 



itself gave tongue, a wave broke, the moun- 
tains answered, the silence returned. It was 
about nine when we got ashore again from 
the voyage to Mannia to find the cook already 
much revived, to see the judge return at a 
bound to his customary affability and gaiety. 
Annuu. — The low end of the island, all 
village and elaborately managed plantations; 
two [hundred?] souls, sixteen tons of copra a 
year, abundance of food. The sea breaks low 
in front, and from the opposite side of the 
channel the reverberation of the surf about 
Tutuila comes back. To the seaward end of 
the isle the theatre of low hills inclines some 
third part of its surface; the amphitheatre has 
much the air of an old crater, very wide and 
low, the bottom occupied by fiat green marsh, 
and the midst by a blue mere; crowds of w^ild 
duck inhabit this; and the water of the lake 
is said to be red and to redden bathers. We 
reached the western summit of this basin by a 
low place shelved in wood; our way was still 
in the midst of woods, so that we had little 
idea of the nature of the country, only walked 
in airless heat among cocoanuts and great ipis 
dark as ivy and rugged as chestnuts. From a 

[131] 



little in front sudden crepitations of surf be- 
gan to strike at intervals upon our ears, then 
came a draught of air striking the foliage ; and 
the next moment the trees parted and we 
stepped forth into the wind and the view of 
the sea. In this place the circuit of the hills 
is broken, the marsh empties itself by a low 
ditch, the freshwater is spread in a shallow 
pool along the top of seaside walks, where 
the splashing of the surf makes it brackish. 
On either hand the broken circuit of the hills 
impends in cliffs. Right in front of the cove, 
which is full of mighty whirl and sudden 
sounds of the surge, looks sixty miles in the 
wind's eye to where Mannia lies; and on the 
left hand two flat stones, like great lizards 
couchant, lie parallel along the top of a flat 
rock; their mouths (to an ardent fancy) might 
seem open; their eyes are fixed upon the dis- 
tant islands. Taia told us they were watching 
the boats; they were left behind, they were 
crying aloud for that desired destination. 
When they found their raft was broken they 
said, "They would not die and get rotten; let 
us turn into stones here so that we may look 
forever at Mannia." The two ''Heads of 

[ 132] 



Families" is what they are called, and from 
immemorial times they had been adored with 
offerings of food. It is perhaps these that 
give its original sanctity to this bold piece of 
coast; why that should all be turned to love, 
why this should be a kind of Island Cyprus — 
I don't quite see. On the top of the sheer 
opposite cliff a stack of cocoa palms and a 
single tao hang imminent. If a man desired 
a woman he decoyed her towards this place; 
and here, if she were coy she would refuse to 
go farther. He led her to the margin of that 
cliff and hung her over. ''Will you go with 
me to the Puatannopo — the Place of Mary 
Puas? If you will not, over you go." Fear 
would triumph ; it seems she must then be true 
to her word, and the pair continued their jour- 
ney. Up the steep bowl-like flank of the cliff 
above the "Heads of Families," the way lay; 
presently again it came near to the margin; a 
great rampart, something [ . . . ] in height, 
serves here for a balustrade; it is broken here 
and there by wide embrasures commanding 
the sea and sky, a giddy stretch of falling rock 
and the breach of the surf. Across one of 
these there was a man, Vasa, who used to leap ; 

[ 133] 



none other durst attempt the feat, and Vasa 
has been dead these thirty years. Then there 
was our old friend the Songster's Leap, but 
the object was quite new, the leap not made to 
escape pursuit but to amaze and dazzle the 
lady who was accompanying him, perhaps 
with half a heart. But the time of her un- 
willingness was nearly over. A little beyond, 
on the immediate brow of the clifif, grows a 
mass of white plumed pua ; so soon as man and 
woman came here together the scent of this 
random garden overpowered resistance. A 
little farther forth the path lay among these 
flowers, the sea bursting close below, a long 
front of cliff making a giddy foreground, and 
far ofip across the flat sea the eastern end of 
Tutuila shows beyond. It is indeed a giddy 
piece of path. Vertigo seized upon one of 
our party, and he was much laughed at and 
told his mind ran upon Venus. (Perhaps 
this is the reason?) 

Below unseen there is somewhere the mouth 
of a cave full of birds, and here was the next 
station of this pilgrimage of love. The lover 
standing close on the edge utters high musical 
cries, and immediately from beneath float up 

[134] 



and up, and wheel awhile below, and float 
higher and wheel overhead, a flock of broad- 
winged sea-birds, black and white. The path 
turns direct over the top of the hill, a grove 
of cocoanuts grows close, and we drink of 
their nuts. All these bear the names of form- 
er visitors, two for each party, the man and 
the woman. Yet a little farther, skirting the 
inner glacis of the bowl of hills, the green 
marsh and the blue pool beneath, and the sea 
shining through the opposite brush, and the 
palms and the tao painted on the sky, they 
reach the last stage and veritable temple of 
the goddess. Huge old ipis stand in a grove; 
beneath them a ring of stones upon the ground ; 
once there was a house which has [been] suf- 
fered to fall down, but the ring of [s] tones is 
maintained, the ground cleaned, the sacred 
ipis watched and I believe the long path kept 
open by two old men at two dollars per men- 
sem. Sic itur ad. The whole practice is now 
much declined and thought of as disgraceful. 
What makes it the more strange, no excuse 
flows from this vain pilgrimage; the guilty 
couple are more blamed than if they had re- 
mained at home, and I could receive no ex- 

[135] 



planation, — but it was a custom from of old. 

The Dutch low lands, ditches, dykes, fields 
of small taio interlaid with straw, palms, play- 
ing poplars, no bush anywhere, all the bowl 
of the hills weeded and cleaned and planted. 
You are out on the cove through a thicket of 
gray [ . . . ], unhealthy; on the rocks dragon 
flies, red as lacquer, flitted; in the rockside 
pools some active little fish kept up a perpet- 
ual bustle, leaping from one to another and 
(solemnlike) making them a ladder to and 
from the sea. 

Thursday. — Set out about 3.30 in the Fan- 
gatanga boat, Laila steering. All the way we 
passed one cove after another, where a man 
might have gone ashore (did the surf permit) 
and settled down for life. The eastern end of 
the island runs sharp as a wedge into the sea; 
you turn it and the north side is suddenly visi- 
ble running out in tall cliffy islets, with the 
back of Pioa overhead. The sun was down 
long ago and the dusk thickening in the bay 
where we were bound. I think it was still 
day on the high seas. Groves of cocoanut run 
high on the hills, stand thick along the sandy 
shore. In the midst of the swamp of beach, a 

[136] 



single black rock breaks the sound and partly 
dams the mouth of a little shallow river com- 
ing slantwise smooth and silent through the 
palms, and when the tide is low, breaking into 
song and making the least possible cascade 
about the rock. Here the hamlet lies, pre- 
senting the usual appearance of a ruined 
church, a little open space among the palms 
where the chief's houses are, — a few scattering 
bread-fruits, and about and behind the depth 
of mountain forest. A crew of children fol- 
lowed us with shouts of laughter from the 
beach, the Writer of Tales whom they declar- 
ed to be a woman and to lack the essential 
bones of the human frame. The house of the 
avatar to whom we were directed was already 
dark, but there was light enough to show us a 
plague of flies and a woman in a rosary 
(wreath of flowers) hastily laying out mats. 
The avatar Alomoa was at work in the bush, 
and his absence and the presence of the flies 
decided us (in an ill hour) to try the great 
house of the village. Thither we returned, 
still followed by the laughing children. It 
was lighter here, for the house stood in the 
midst of the open place of the village, stood 

[ 137] 



besides on a raised, round, flat frame of stones, 
and its pillars were extremely high. This in 
particular pleased us, and we began to think 
we were in good quarters. A woman received 
us, not with much alacrity, and word was sent 
for the chief. As we sat waiting him, the 
house was gradually filled and surrounded by 
the curious of the village, and a curious scene 
they were certainly destined to enjoy. The 
chief was seen at last to issue from a closed 
house some distance back, — a tall, sickly, sol- 
emn figure of a man, attired in green and with 
a rosary; slowly he approached, bid us a stiff 
welcome, sat down, and the palaver com- 
menced. He began by saying we might stay 
the night, and our boys who were only wait- 
ing for the signal set out at once for the beach 
to bring up our possessions. Next he asked 
why we had passed his house by, and gone to 
another. He was told we had an introduction 
from a friend. Then he told us he was sorry 
he could give us no food, as it was night. We 
responded that we had plenty of food of our 
own and a man to cook it. Thereupon (as by 
an interlude) we were offered Kava, which 
we never saw; and then he annoyed us by in- 

[138] 



quiring if we had any money, and offering to 
sell fowls. This was the last blow; Laila be- 
ing by, we consulted him if there was another 
village we could still reach. The village was 
distant, the landing dangerous, the night fall- 
ing, the boys longing for Kava, food and a talk 
with the girls; but Laila, having heard some- 
thing of our usage, offered to try it on. There- 
upon Sewall ' began; he told our host that we 
had traveled all over Samoa, and had nowhere 
had such a reception; that it was un-Samoan, 
and that he desired to know why we were so 
used. The host made some excuses, and re- 
peated that we had passed his house. Sewall 
took up the wondrous tale once more, told him 
what big chiefs we were, how we had come 
here glowing with Alofa and laden with pres- 
ents; how he, Sewall, had to do with war ships 
and the malo, and what a bad day's work the 
chief had done for himself. The chief once 
more made many excuses, vowed he had been 
a '^fool," in so many words, and begged us to 
stay. Sewall turned to me. I said I had not 
been received by this person as a gentleman 

^This was Harold Sewall, the American Consul-General, 
who accompanied Stevenson on the trip. — Ed. 

[139] 



should, that I did not regard him as a gentle- 
man, should not treat him as a gentleman (if I 
stayed), but as the landlord of a dirty inn; 
which being the case I thought it neither for 
his soul's health nor mine that we should stop 
longer in that house, and for my part I pre- 
ferred to spend the night at sea. This was 
translated (like all the rest, in a very emascu- 
lated form, by the timid Charlie) ; and Sewall 
gave our boys the order to begin returning the 
goods, and the chief began once more his 
"[...] low apioga's." Already those in 
the house and around it were much stirred, 
but now came the cream. The great man was 
yet talking, when we three arose. Sewall bade 
him hold his tongue, I made him a scornful 
gesture of farewell, and we passed out. The 
village of Ana boiled like a kettle. Our boys 
with an excellent affectation of alacrity (for 
they approved our attitude, though they dis- 
liked the business) were running to the boat 
with all our truck, and the public place was 
black with the entire inhabitants, whispering 
and nodding to each other. The disgrace was 
public, and so felt. Sewall was great as he 
stood on the terrace of the house we had just 

[ 140] 



left, his back to the man in green, and directed 
his boys for the removal. In the midst up 
came Alomoa, now returned from the bush; 
up came a Hawaiian who keeps a store in the 
village; up came the chief, and all three offer- 
ed us accommodations. We decided, after 
some discussion, to accept the offer of Alomoa ; 
and to the huge joy of our boys returned to the 
house of flies. It was a reward for all these 
sorrows, when I strolled to the beach at night 
and looked forward over the pale river and 
pale sea, to where the northern sky was still 
pallid with the evening, or back to the pillared 
houses of the village, lit up from within by the 
red glow of the cooking fire and the brighter 
star of the paraffine lamp. After a long dis- 
cussion of the isles our boys set off to a pali 
tele; not long after the clapping of hands told 
us the Kava was ready for their entertainment, 
and presently the strong sound of their sing- 
ing ran in the night. 

I may say I was asleep from the moment I 
lay down; woke in the night but twice, and 
once was when a shower came and the blinds 
had to be lowered. The first streaks of day 
called me; I was awake before the village; 

[141] 



nothing stirred but multitudes of pigs, black 
and gray, who trotted to and fro and grunted 
to each other as they went; and as I bathed in 
the river in the thin twilight a gray sow 
watched me, jealously grunting. Some little 
fishes, no bigger than minnows, leaped the 
while on the surface of the water and actually 
struck me as they leaped. A little after, the 
life woke. Alomoa and his wife strummed 
their Rainamu and set forth from the house. 
On all sides people wrapped in their unfolded 
lavalavas, like Eastern mantles, were to be 
seen making their way to the beach. Four 
tall young men set off together, robed in white, 
in blue, and in blue with a pattern of white; 
presently they returned and sitting in a row in 
the open galler}- of their house, chanted a brief 
song. A drum was beat, like last night, — not 
the pati, but the war drum. Women began to 
go around the houses with a basket, playing 
scavenger. And here came Ah Sin with a cup 
of tea, and I must turn to my d'lRry with what 
appetite I might. Hard is the lot of the 
Tusitala. 

The population of Ana used to be 200; it is 
now ninet}'-odd. War and sickness were 

[142] 



named among the causes; and this, also, that 
the men took wives from Mannia, and the 
children went afterwards to their mothers' 
houses — why? 

Eight oarsmen, a cox, Laila, Ah Sin, Char- 
lie, Sewall, Llovd and me: fourteen souls in 
all. 

Wednesday. — Sailed a little before high 
water, and came skirting for some while along 
a coast of classical landscapes. cliflFy promon- 
tories, long sandy coves divided by semi-inde- 
pendent islets, and the far-withdrawing sides 
of the mountain, rich with everv^ shape and 
shade of verdure. Nothing lacked but tem- 
ples and galleys, and our own long whaleboat 
sped to the sound of singing by eight oarsmen 
figured a piece of antiquity better perhaps than 
we thought. Xo road leads along this coast. 
We scarce saw a house; these delectable islets 
lay quite deserted, inviting seizure: and there 
was none, like Keats' Endymion, to hear our 
snow light cadence. The harbour opened sud- 
denly like a Scots loch ; the bay of Oa, to whose 
rear we had now worked round, filling it at the 
end : and to this by a pardonable tongapiti, our 
boatmen sought to bend the course. The far 

[143] 



isle to which we were bound they assured us 
was unscalable, waterless, nutless; we but in- 
sisted the more, and after the usual Samoan 
period of opposition, the coxswain smilingly 
gave way, and we pursued our ascent of the 
coast, — not very far. Upon a sudden we be- 
gan to enter the bay of Oa. At the first sight, 
my mind was made up ; the bay of Oa was the 
place for me. We could not enter it, we had 
been assured ; and having entered we could not 
land: — both statements plainly fiction, both 
easily resolved into the fact that here was no 
guest house and no girls to make the Kava for 
our boatmen and admire their singing. A lit- 
tle gentle insistence once again produced a 
smiling acquiescence, and the eight oars began 
to urge us slowly into a bay of the Aeneid. 
Right over head a conical hill arises; its top 
is all sheer cliff of a rosy pallor, stained with 
orange and purple, bristled and ivied with in- 
dividual climbing trees ; lower down the woods 
are massed, huge individual trees standing to 
the neck in forest. Lower again the rock crops 
out in a steep buttress which divides the arc of 
beach. The western arc was the smaller; on 
the eastern, in the forepoint of the beach, I 

[ 144 ] 



spied, to my sorrow, figures moving, and a lit- 
tle smoke. The boat was eased in, we landed 
and turned this way and that, like fools, in a 
perplexity of pleasures; now some way into 
the wood toward the spire, but the woods had 
soon strangled the path ; in the Samoan phrase, 
the way was dead, and we began to flounder in 
impenetrable brush, still far from the foot of 
the ascent, although already the greater trees 
began to throw out arms dripping with lianas 
and to accept us in the margin of their 
shadows. Now along the beach, — it was 
grown up with crooked, thick-leaved trees 
down to the water's edge. Immediately be- 
hind, there had once been a clearing; it was all 
choked up with the mummy-apple, which in 
this country springs up at once at the heels of 
the axeman, and among this was intermingled 
the cocoa-palm and the banana. Our landing 
and the bay itself had nearly turned my head. 
"Here are the works of all the poets passim^^^ 
I said. And just then my companion stopped. 
"Behold an omen," said he, and pointed. It 
was a sight I had heard of before in the is- 
lands, but not seen : a little tree such as grows 
sometimes on infinitesimal islets on the reef, 

[145] 



almost stripped of its leaves and covered in- 
stead with feasting butterflies. These, as we 
drew near, arose and hovered in a cloud of 
blue and silver gray. Later on I found the 
scene repeated in another place; but here the 
butterflies were of a different species, glossy 
brown and black, with arabesques of white. 

The figures we had seen were those of an 
old woman, her daughter and two little boys ; 
they came from the village under the other 
side of Vamanga, and in the coals at their feet 
a cuttlefish was cooking. Our boys, with the 
two knives and the hatchet, strolled up, sat 
down, forgot their errand, and without any 
invitation that I could hear, divided among 
themselves the cuttlefish; they may have left 
an arrow; and the old lady, highly delighted, 
invited them over to her house that night to 
sleep with her daughter. Doubtless a high 
spirited pleasantry in the island fashion. 

The sun was still shining on the eastern hill, 
and the birds were still piping in all the bushy 
sides of our inlet, when I was able to sit down 
to my diary in the open front of our new 
house; the smoke of the rekindled fire drifting 
before me, the smell of roasting pig strong in 

[146] 



my nostrils; the boat pulled up, the crew seat- 
ed about smoking their banana-leaf cigarettes ; 
our boxes piled in disorder on the shore; and 
right in front of me (where our Chinaman 
had placed it out of the way of harm) our 
brass lantern glittering in a niche of a shore- 
side tree. As I wrote, the snails of the beach 
climbed upon my ink pot. 

As we came in, high above us in the honey- 
combed woods, flying-foxes and snow white 
gulls were flying. 

We ate in the front of our shed. Pig, [...], 
miki, and roasted taro, were native food, 
washed down with a historic wine, — white 
California from the wreck of Admiral Kim- 
berley's ship, the Trenton. It appeared that 
even in the lot of Admirals there was a crook. 
It was curious meanwhile, as the boys sat about 
on a big Futu tree before us, to see them upon 
their sides, eating tinned salmon from home; 
but how often it is so, that the common food 
of one race should be the delicacy of the other; 
and the consul's excellent tea, which Ah Sin 
brews for me at sunrise and which I was one 
day so unworldly as to praise, the traveled 
Chinaman identified as "poor man's tea." A 

[147] 



little while after, our boys began suddenly to 
sing. They sat all about the tree, some in 
their sheds, some on the far side by the sea; 
in the dusk, and by the light of the dying fire, 
it was just possible to see the nearest, their 
bare shoulders polished in the glow. One 
raised the song; the rest from different sides 
and distances joined in. It was a fine grave 
measure. I thought it had some European 
base, but the Samoans so transfuse their bor- 
rowed music that I had no guess it was a hymn, 
and applauded in the usual pause. I was still 
applauding when I was aware of the sustained 
sound of a voice from the far side of the tree; 
and by the subdued tones, and the recurrence 
of the exclusive plural, knew it was a prayer, 
and that I had burst with music hall applause 
into the midst of the evening worship. A 
sharp, file-firing ''Amen" from the scattered 
worshippers marked the conclusion of the ex- 
ercises. By that time it was fully night. The 
lantern was set before us in the front of our 
tent. Four of the boys sat in a row on their 
hams. Behind them in a turban of parti- 
colored towelling, the cook beat the measure 
on a biscuit case; the lantern threw them out 

[148] 



brightly; behind it sparkled on the fat leaves 
and crooked branches of the Futu, and behind 
again, but for some occasional glimmer of the 
sea, mere night enclosed us. At such an hour, 
by such a light, in this desert and romantic 
cove, I saw for the first time the male dancers 
of Tutuila; they gave us their songs; about 
voyage, with paddling and looking out from 
under the hand; a song of exercise and skirm- 
ishing with the Winchester rifle; and another 
of the same with the old Samoan war club. 
Change of tempo; huge effect; when the 
dances were over they lay on the ground and 
sang the lament for the deportation of Mann- 
ga; and then the concert degenerated into a 
long talk in which we discussed Mannga's 
exile, and the Malietoa and the Tanasese 
feuds, and the case of the dancers whom Cun- 
ningarne had taken to Europe, and the story 
of the two who had escaped from him and by 
the help of a kind German lady had returned 
to their beloved island; and we gave them ex- 
cellent advice and the consul chaffed them and 
was chafifed handsomely in return, for he who 
spars with Samoans must look to receive coun- 
ters; and then came the word of dissolution, 

[149] 



Fiamoa. It was Topa here, and Topa there. 
Our boys scattered to their roosting places; 
the nets were triced up in the shed, we took 
our places, and the lantern was turned out. It 
was like the removal of a cataract; in the 
twinkling of an eye the walls of darkness that 
contained us burst, and there was the heaven 
bright with stars, and there were the sea and 
the hillside clear in the starlight. 

All night the crickets sang with a clear trill 
of silver; all night the sea filled the hollow of 
the bay with varying utterance; now sounding 
continuous like a mill-weir; now (perhaps 
from farther off) with pointed swells and si- 
lences. In the morning I went wandering on 
the beach when the tide was low. I went 
round the tree before our boys had stirred; it 
was the first clear gray of the morning; and I 
could see them lie, each in his place, enmeshed 
from head to foot in his unfolded kilt. The 
Highlander with his belted plaid, the Samoan 
with his lava-lava, each sleep in their one ves- 
ture unfolded. One boy, who slept in the open 
under the trees, had made his pillow of a 
smouldering brand, doubtless for the conven- 
ience of a midnight cigarette; all night the 

[ISO] 



flame had crept nearer, and as he lay there 
wrapped like an Oriental woman and still 
plunged in sleep, the redness was within t\vo 
hands-breadths of his frizzled hair. I had 
scarce bathed, had scarce begun to enjoy the 
fairness and precious colors of the morning, 
the golden glow along the edge of the high 
eastern woods, the clear light on the sugar 
leaf of mangalai, the woven blue and emerald 
of the cove, the chuckle of morning bird song 
that filled the valley of the woods, when, upon 
a sudden, a draught of wind came from the 
leeward and the highlands of the isle, rain 
rattled on the tossing woods; the pride of the 
morning had come early and from an unlook- 
ed-for side. I fled for refuge in the shed; but 
such of our boys as were awake stirred not in 
the least; they sat where they were, perched on 
the scattered boxes of our camp, and puffed at 
their stubborn cigarettes, and crouched a little 
in the slanting shower. So good a thing it is 
to wear few clothes. I who was largely un- 
clad — a pair of serge trousers, a singlet, 
woolen socks, and canvas shoes — think of it! 
— envied them their light array. 

Thursday. — Snacse [?] and Laila withdrew 

[151] 



to t±ie village, which they found in the nick of 
the next day, an exceptionally wind-swept, 
cheery, and bemedalled place of dwelling. 
Pioa clear overhead, and a thin, hen's path 
across the narrow isle to go to Pagopago and 
return. Meanwhile I had Virgil's bay all 
morning to myself, and feasted on solitude and 
the overhanging woods, and the retiring sea. 
The quiet was only broken by the hoarse cooing 
of wild pigeons up the valley, and certain in- 
roads of capricious winds that find a way hence 
and thence down the hill-side and set the palms 
clattering: my enjoyment only disturbed by 
clouds of dull, voracious, spotted and not par- 
ticularly welcomed mosquitoes. When I was 
still I kept Buhac powder burning by me on a 
stone under the shed, and read Li\y, and com- 
pared today and tv^^o thousand years ago, and 
wondered in which of these epochs I was 
flourishing that moment: and then I would 
stroll out and see the rocks and the woods, and 
the arcs of beaches. car\"ed like a whorl in a 
fair woman's ear. and huge ancient trees jut- 
ting high overhead out of the hanging forest, 
great as mountains, and feel the place at least 
belonged to the age of fable, and awaited 

[152] 



Aeneas and his battered fleets. All day the 
snow white birds wheeled above and settled 
on our Futu ; snow white as those in Poe's hy- 
perbolical stor\^, the tail split like a swallow's, 
the courage certainly high, for I saw (far 
across the bay) two of these shining fowl 
perched in the top of our Futu, while the bus- 
iness, smoke and laughter of our camp rose all 
about them. 

Some time in the afternoon — two for a guess 
— we have no watch in our parn- and rudely 
compute by the rising and setting of the sun — 
we were aware of a bustle and the boys run- 
ning here and there with our effects. ''What 
is it? A great rain?" Xo sooner said than 
realized; down came the rain in a brief water- 
spout; the boys clustered sadly under the Futu, 
the roof of our shed became transpierced 
through joint and crevice with fine drills of 
cold water, and we sat dripping amid our 
drenched possessions. ''Evil is this house that 
you have built us," we cried to our boys, "Evil 
are the trees in this place," was the reply from 
the clustered herd under the Futu. But the 
evil was in our own neglect, for the Samoan 
must be watched and managed, and the night 

[153] 



before we had been too much pleased with 
our fine bay to mind the builders. By good 
luck the shower was as short as it was sharp, 
and we made a busy job of it to draw our 
books and clothes and bedding on the coral 
gravel in the returning sun. 

Thursday. — The new house held water. 
Showers fell often in the night; some sound- 
ing from far off like a cataract, some striking 
the house ; but not a drop came in. The flow- 
ers of the Futu lie scattered about it, tassels 
of fine sprays, snow white, warming through 
rose to crimson, and each tipped with a golden 
star. This drawing-room finery looks strange- 
ly out of place on the rude shingle. At night 
a cry of a wild catlike creature in the brush. 
Far up on the hill, one golden tree, — they say 
it is a wild cocoanut. I know it is not; they 
must know so too; and this leaves me free to 
think it sprang from the gold bough of Pro- 
serpine. 

The morning was all in blue; the sea blue, 
— blue in shore upon the shallows, — only the 
blue was nameless; and the horizon clouds a 
blue, like a fine pale porcelain; the sky be- 
hind them a pale lemon faintly warmed with 

[154] 



orange. Much that one sees in the tropics is 
in water-colors ; but this sunrise was in water- 
colors by a young lady. 

All our camp still slept, — the cox and the 
interpreter in their separate shed, the crew in 
the three others, and the lame man in his 
usual chamber, the hollow of the tree. None 
stirred; and behold, the tide was full, the mo- 
ment counted. I shook up the cox, and he 
with a long pole beat on the green roofs of the 
sheds and called his crew together. It was 
still early when we stole out of the Bay. Pola, 
when we came there, was but a wall of rock, 
divided from the mainland by a bubbling 
channel of about two boats' length ; trees clus- 
tered on its narrow top, a few clung on its side 
which was in one place buttressed with a nat- 
ural arch. Thousands of sea birds wheeled 
silently above or sat close in crannies, or be- 
snowed the clinging trees. To look at the 
place was to understand the irony of our boat's 
crew when they smilingly consented to come 
there and camp. Again they proposed it. 
Through the gate we skirted a precipitous 
shore with some nut stacks, here green with 
climbing wood, here bursting forth in naked 

[155] 



crags striped with cinnabar, here wet with 
falling streams, — the devil's taro, the sea- 
birds following. 



[156] 



LETTERS OF STEVENSON TO HIS 

MOTHER — 1868-1890 

It is greatly to be regretted that Stevenson^s 
correspondence with his parents, and especial- 
ly with his mother, was not published before 
the dispersal of the Stevenson family papers. 
The opportunity to issue such a volume has 
now gone by, and the best that can be hoped 
for is the addition in print from time to time 
to those letters that have already appeared, of 
such little groups as may be made available 
by private collectors into whose hands the 
manuscripts have passed. 

The six that here follow begin with a letter 
full of boyish exuberance and humor, written 
when Stevenson was eighteen years old. It 
was a period when in deference to his father's 
wishes, but with little enthusiasm, he was try- 
ing to qualify himself for entrance upon the 
family profession of lighthouse building, and 
we find him at Wick, observing the work of 
his father's firm. But with this work Stev- 
enson here concerns himself only in a few 
lines; interestingly, where he writes that after 
"two poles were put up, the levels taken, the 

[157] 



gauges up-fixed; and, with these hands I cut 
the paper strips!" 

The quotations in Latin, the reference to 
poets — Coleridge, Byron, Southey — the mis- 
spellings of words, the gossip about friends, 
the interjection of French words and the pass- 
ing reference to his supposedly real work at 
Wick, all form a happy-go-lucky jumble, in a 
letter which Stevenson intended to be "very 
witty, very amusing, very romantic, very en- 
tertaining in general." But the chief value of 
the youthful ef^fusion lies in the fact that it il- 
lustrates the geniality of Stevenson's relation- 
ship with the mother for whom his devotion 
was ever to remain so constant. 

The second letter, dated in his mother's au- 
tograph, as written at Bournemouth Decem- 
ber 15, 1884, belongs to a period when Stev- 
enson, then a married man, was in extremely 
ill health, but very busy with work. A week 
earlier he had asked his parents to bring with 
them on their contemplated visit his volumes 
of Montaigne, Milton, Shakespeare and Haz- 
litt, and a few other books. To some of these 
volumes reference is again made in the present 
letter, the chief point of interest in which is its 

[158] 



mention of Sargent's portrait of Stevenson, 
and of Gladstone's already known enthusiasm 
for Treasure Island. The references to his 
father's appearance and address are explained 
in a note, again in the mother's autograph, the 
elder Stevenson then having recently become 
President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 

To both mother and father the third letter, 
dated by Mrs. Stevenson, Bournemouth July 
31 1885, is addressed. In the Spring of that 
year Stevenson's father had given to his daugh- 
ter-in-law the house at Bournemouth, origin- 
ally named '^Bonallie Towers," and re-named 
"Skerryvore," in reminiscence, as Sir Sidney 
Colvin has stated, "of one of the great light- 
house works carried out by the family firm off 
the Scottish coast." Stevenson and his wife 
are here adding to the appearance of the draw- 
ing room and the dining room, and the young 
husband seems quite cheerful despite the bank- 
ruptcy that he predicts as a consequence. 

The fourth letter was written at Honolulu 
in June 1889, just after Stevenson had re- 
turned from his visit to the leper settlement at 
Molokai. In the months of May and June 
1889, Stevenson described to his friends, Sid- 

[159] 



ney Colvin and James Payn, some of his ex- 
periences among those stricken people where 
Father Damien labored; others of these ex- 
periences are set forth for the first time in the 
Lazaretto article printed herein, as well as 
in the present letter to his mother. Here, as 
nowhere else in Stevenson's wTitings, are some 
very attractive lights on Father Damien him- 
self, w^hose entertainments varied from the 
religious to the comic and who, Stevenson 
says, "reminds us of Colvin in many ways, 
which you know is a big word for us." 

That same month Stevenson sailed from 
Honolulu on the steamer Equator^ to vari- 
ous islands of the western Pacific, arriving at 
Samoa late in December. It was during this 
journey and on that vessel that the fifth ex- 
ceedingly interesting letter was written to his 
mother. The people and doings on shipboard 
come in for detailed mention, including the 
proceedings that celebrated Stevenson's thir- 
ty-ninth birthday. 

After some wxeks at Samoa, where Steven- 
son bought the mountain estate which was 
later to become his home and his death place, 
he went in February 1890 to Sydney, and from 

[160] 



that port, he embarked in April on the trading 
steamer Janet Nicoll for a voyage of some 
four months among the Gilberts, the Mar- 
shalls, and others of the Pacific Islands. 

The sixth letter was written during this voy- 
age, — the crew, the company and the route 
forming the subject matter. How pleasant 
were Stevenson's relations with his ship com- 
panions on this cruise is best shown in the dedi- 
cation of the "Island Nights Entertainments" 
to Harry Henderson, Jack Buckland, and Ben 
Heard, ''supercargo frae Aiberdeen." 

G. S. H. 

Pulteney Hotel, 
Friday, Oct. 2nd, 1868, 1 1 130 P.M. 
My dear Mother, — 

''Ha my prophetic soul!" how true thou 
prophesied! or prophesiedest; but the latter is 
bad orthorgraphy and spoils the Alexandrine 
(Nota Bene: papa will again object to poet- 
ry). I knew you were on the broad of your 
back. Second withering blast of prophesy: — 
you have been at church] I am glad you are 
better. 

To desert these w^indy and perilous heights 

[161] 



of prophesy and grandeur, let me court the 
hum-drum muse of epistolary diction: you see 
I am still a little Poped; indeed he fairly 
pooped me! 

Miss J. — J? Where are thy thoughts? — 
Miss Jamie Jamiesen, to be sure! 

On Wednesday the Russels sent for me to 
come at eight. Wondering, I went. (Stay — 
a little gossip first. . . ^Enough — more than 
enough of gossip! So go on.) Forma and 
Latta (forma translates nicely: supposing an 
ellision thus: "Pulcherrima forma," which 
papa will translate) Miss Coxe, Adams et 
ego were to go a walk "per amica silentia 
lunae, — under the friendly silence of the 
moon" — ahem! Virgil! to quote Pangloss — 
to the Old Man of Wick, a ruinous Tower on 
a neck of beetling cliflF, with two roaring 
chasms of tarn and a wild coast of crag and 
cane and boulder trending away on either 
hand (papa here once more condemns Tatler- 
anean tendency and deplores same). I en- 
tertained Sara and the latter woman: Adams, 
Miss Coxe. Of course on occasions, it faded 
into an insipid party of five; but that was 

* Two lines were here erased by his Mother. 

[162] 



the usual arrangement. We sat down outside 
the tower and watched ''The moon-chased 
shadows" fly across the wide white fields of 
tarn. The latter, who is very romantic and 
likes Byron, Scott, dim moonlight and faded 
lovers, found her heart too full for words and 
retired to a far pinnacle, like Elijah the Tish- 
bite alone. 

I was so much amused at Mrs. Russell 
(who is a very nice body, albeit a Paget of the 
Pagets and the real Pagets, whence comes the 
tuftism) ; she was so frightened; we were to 
keep away from the rocks ; we were to do this ; 
I was to put on her shawl (which, however, I 
secreted in the lobby) ; we were to do that; 
but, above all, was she distressed over a por- 
tion of Sara's attire, — a garment called, I am 
told, a p-t-c-t. This part of her apparel had 
been scrupulously cleansed for Germanee! 
and they feared that, passing through the 
mire, it might become soiled. In my eager- 
ness to oblige, not only did I become bound 
to wear the shawl and become answerable for 
the necks and future health of the whole party, 
but I actually offered a guarantee for the safe 
return of the said portion of attire or wearing 

[163] 



apparel, or the aforesaid garment, namely the 
p-t-c-t: whereat, on rit. We had a very pleas- 
ant walk. 

So you left Swanston yesterday. Heu 
scelerata jacet sedes in Heriot Row! (How 
classical I have become — haven't I ?) As this 
substitution makes the line a foot too short, 
you will be pleased to proceed on the *'Mur- 
ray of Murrays Ha-Ha'' principle, and say 
''Row-ow," which makes it correct. The line 
is the beginning of Ovid's description of Tar- 
tarus; so it's rather hard on "sweet seventeen'' 
after all. And left it yesterday, while I was 
waiting for Mr. Robieson absent foreman- 
joiner. Well ! well ! troubles never come sing- 
ly! 

Today the two poles were put up ; the levels 
taken; the gauges up-fixed; and, with these 
hands I cut the paper strips! Tomorrow and 
Monday our men take the observations. 

David MacD. and I pulled out in the boat 
to the bay's mouth when the men were done. 
The moon rose, red and '^rideeclous magni- 
fied" from the breast of the sea. It was a 
lovely night. A lugger, out for the night's 
fishing, passed close by; it looked tall, filmy 

[164] 



and unnatural in the dim light; we could only 
see the outline. At last, it drove "betwixt the 
moon and us" — ahem! Coleridge! (Pangloss 
again) — you would have been delighted. We 
pulled back, moored the boat at the outmost 
ladder and walked in along the staging. Sud- 
denly D. M. stopped; I thought he looked 
livid about the gills. "The dog!" he gasped. 

"What about the dog? The dog knows 
joM?" said I, a little chilled. 

"I don't know that though," he said; "and 
even when he wasn't so fierce, I seen ^ him set 
on a young man that came down w^ith me." 

Didn't I feel happy! we armed ourselves 
with stones and very cautiously crept down the 
staging, trying to whistle and look calm. 

After all, we did not see him. 

Mrs. Wemyss and her son called here to- 
day. I must go out either on Saturday or 
Monday, whichever day I can get the time. 
For I am to leave on Toosda and chaperone 
Forma and Latta down; that's rather a spec, 
isn't it? 

This here letter has been intended to be very 
witty, very amusing, very romantic, very en- 

^ As the old cock, etc. "I^ cog chanter." [Author's note.] 

[165] 



tertaining in general. The only thing that 
broke down was the gossip. I had an awful 
vision of parental brows in awful anger bent; 
and parental lips saying: "Put nothing in 
black and white." Besides, what it seems but 
little malicious to say, seems perfectly diaboli- 
cal on paper — the mean, low hits that flour- 
ish in the bitter satire of the satanic Byron. 
But isn't it true about Southey for all that. 
''Immortal Hero!" — this is — ''. . . for ever 
reign . . . Since startled metre fled before 
thy face!" 

I could not write to ; her name is so 

hard to spell. 

I remain, 

Ever your afl^'t son, 
R. L. Stevenson 

'Tarcite, ab urbe venit, jam parcite epis- 
tolae, Robert." Another hexameter neatly al- 
tered, if papa could only scan, he would ad- 
mire it. 

When your letter came I said, ''Demme!" 
followin' my present classical bent. 



[i66] 



December 15, 1884. 
My dear Mother, — 

Perhaps the Milton is at Hyeres; I did not 
think so, but it might be. It is Lang's Myths 
that I want. The Henry Fourth — let 'em 
look in the reviews: I can't remember the 
name, Wiley or something; but it has been 
reviewed in the Athenaeum^ Saturday, and 
Academy of the past three weeks or month. 

Sargent just gone; a charming, simple, clev- 
er, honest young man; he has delighted us. 
It appears Gladstone talks all the time about 
Treasure Island] he would do better to attend 
to the imperial affairs of England. We shall 
tell you nothing of what we think of S's pic- 
ture, for the excellent reason that we prefer to 
hear from you. It is a lovely frosty morning. 

Why I have never spoken of my father's 
appearances^ I cannot think. I was working 
so very hard that I had little time to remember 
anything. I thought both good ; but the ref- 
erence to Grant admirable. I would have 
changed nothing. 

Ever vour afft. son, 

R. L. S. 

1 As President of the Royal Society. 

[167] 



Bournemouth, July 31, 1885 
My dear people, — 

We are having great doings. The draw- 
ing-room will soon be lovely, and we bank- 
rupt. It will be a very quaint, but a very 
pleasing and harmonious room, and rich too; 
and with the picture, a Great Spot altogether. 
The tricycle arrived here in delicate health, 
and has since boarded at the house of a per- 
fidious tradesman; when we shall again be- 
hold it, the p. t. alone can say. I am very 
glad you have Mr. Bremmer with you; that 
will be a great comfort; please remember me 
to him kindly. If I were my mother, I should 
draw it mild with the Irish Cars. I don't 
believe they are good for her at all; or at least 
in excess. Did you hear that I had given way 
to a convex mirror in the dining room? It is 
sublime; no picture can be so decorative and 
cheerful. My mind shows symptoms, I think, 
of reawakening; high time, by George! Sar- 
gent comes to paint me again. Bob, Louisa, 
Portle, Lemon and Mrs. Lemon are down at 
Poole, where Coggie goes today to make room 
for Henley for two days. I am, 

R. L. S. 

[168] 



Honolulu, June, 1889. 
My dear Mother, — 

Herewith goes a copy of my first letter from 
the leper settlement; my second, that is to say 
my diary,^ is too long to copy, as it runs to 
near forty pp. I can only tell you briefly that 
I was a week in the settlement, hag-ridden by 
horrid sights but really inspired with the sight 
of so much goodness in the helpless and so 
much courage and unconsciousness in the sick. 
The Bishop Home (the Sisters' place) is per- 
fect; I went there most days to play croquet 
with the poor patients — think of a game of 
croquet with seven little lepers, and the ther- 
mometer sometimes ninety in the shade! I 
rode there and back, and used to have a little 
old maid meal prepared for me alone by the 
sisters; and though I was often deadly tired, I 
was never the worse. The girls enjoyed the 
game a good deal, and the honor and glory of 
a clean Laole gentleman for playmate yet 

1 See page 177 for Stevenson's account of the Lazaretto. 

[169] 



more. They were none of them badly dis- 
figured, but some of the bystanders were 
dreadful ; but indeed I have seen sights to turn 
any man's hair white. The croquet helped me 
a bit, as I felt I was not quite doing nothing; 
Sister Maryanne wanted me to sit down the 
second day, and only tell the girls; I said '^they 
would not enjoy that'' — ^^Ah," said she, with a 
smiling eye, '^you say that, but the truth is you 
enjoy playing yourself!" And so I did. When 
I came on board the Mokolii (little 40-ton 
steamer) to leave, I had no proper pass and 
was refused entrance. I saw some very re- 
markable fire-works, I can tell you, for I had 
had enough and to spare of the distressful 
country. But it was all made right; the cap- 
tain took me ashore the same evening at the 
north end of the island, gave me a mount, in- 
troduced me to an innumerable Irish family 
where I had supper and a bed, and gave me a 
horse and a mounted guide next day, with 
w^hom I rode twenty miles to Mr. Meyer's 
house. The next day, I had another ride, a 
mighty rough drive over a kind of road to the 
landing place; caught the Mokolii again, and 
was in Honolulu the morning after about nine, 

[170] 



very sunburnt and rudely well. How is that 
for activity and rustic strength? 

Grace is not invariable but (I may say) 
frequent; and when not forgotten, is (ahem!) 
very well said. Joe, Lloyd and I are getting 
up music; guitar, talopatch, flageolet and voice 
for the show. Le bon Damien is to give us a 
choice of his comic slides; he has given us al- 
ready a complete set of the life of Christ; we 
have a fine magic lantern. Foo goes with us. 
He is quite brightened up by the decision, 
which was come to in a long talk under the 
trees at Damien's, — D, Mrs. D, and F piping 
up in Chinese with remarkable lyrical effects, 
and I sitting by and enjoying the concert. Ah 
Foo is death on Damien; but indeed we all 
exceedingly like him ; he reminds us of Colvin 
in many ways, which you know is a big word 
for us. Joe's debts are getting thinner; Tahiti 
lennade [?] is square, and genteel, but lan- 
guid. 

The Comorant is gone, to our great loss; 
they made us a hammock ere they left, and 
arranged for the relieving ship, the Espiegle^ 
to make the others. Was at a school examin- 
ation yesterday (girls school) ; it is a plain-look- 

[171] 



ing race; more pretty girls in the little box at 
Tantira [?] than in all this big hall; but they 
sang, and recited, and played the piano, like 
any European school, and for the singing (and 
the recitation too) far away better. Must dry 
up. Much love. 

Ever afift. son 

R. L. S. 



[172] 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 
LAZARETTO— 1889 

In an editorial note in the Thistle Edition, 
prefixed to the letters of Stevenson published 
under the title of ^'In the South Seas," mention 
is made of his experiences at the leper settle- 
ment at Molokai, and the omission of the nar- 
ration of these experiences is attributed to 
Stevenson's dissatisfaction with his paper de- 
scribing them. The present sketch is presum- 
ably only the perfected portion and perhaps 
the only part extant of the longer piece of writ- 
ing left unused by Stevenson, although the 
theory is tenable that this fragment, if already 
seen by other editorial eyes, has not found its 
way previously into print because under the 
veil of its artistry there lies a sensuous sugges- 
tion not fully acceptable to finicky readers. 

Stevenson's letters from the South Seas 
(originally printed serially in partial form 
in "Black and White," and fully in the New 
York Sun in 1891) record the three voyages in 
the vessels Casco, Equator and Janet Nichollj 
from June 1888, to September 1890, and cover 
his adventures in various islands of the eastern 

[173] 



and western Pacific. Of these experiences 
none was more poignant than the visit to the 
lepers, and the intensit}^ of his interest, both in 
those ill-fated people and in the friends who 
sought to be of aid to them, found its most 
fearless expression in the famous letter in de- 
fense of Father Damien. Yet Stevenson's 
sympathy could not blind him to the fact, 
made patent in the following pages, that 
among these doomed men and women the nor- 
mal code of morals did not obtain. The sit- 
uation bears resemblance to that which is said 
to be not unusual in a colony of consumptives. 
The foreknowledge of death tends in such 
communities to laxity, to slackening of the 
moral cord. And if even in western civiliza- 
tion this disintegration takes place, and the 
brief span of life is devoted to such pleasures 
as still are possible, how much greater may 
well be the absorption in sensual satisfaction 
among the natives of the South Seas who are 
by training and temperament less inclined to 
the repression of the elementary emotions. 

Stevenson approaches his theme ''in cool 
and reasonable blood." He does not hide his 
initial horror at the sight of the lepers; but he 

[174] 



is soon cheered by the "blessed conviction" 
that these deformed creatures had a happi- 
ness of their own; and from this point on he 
shows, in his brief paper, a very human un- 
derstanding of the pleasures of the lepers in 
their food and their "gambols." The episode 
of the young girl who accosted him in the be- 
lief that he himself was a leper is a very tell- 
ing one, and Stevenson takes satisfaction in the 
thought that "those who would be elsewhere 
things to frighten children, might here court 
admiration and awaken desire." 

Apart from the interest of the subject mat- 
ter, there is one sentence in this sketch that 
calls for special comment. "To many of those 
Vho meddle with cold iron' (in the form of 
pens) some design of writing affords excuse 
sufficient for the most gross intrusions; per- 
haps, less fortunate, I have never attained to 
this philosophy." This is Stevenson's rejec- 
tion of the theory of art for art's sake, in its 
absolute form. Not every theme, he here con- 
tends, is material for the writer; or at least if 
the phrase "less fortunate" establishes Steven- 
son's unwillingness to deny arguments of those 
who feel otherwise, his sensitive nature as well 

[175] 



as his artistic susceptibilities are revealed as 
reluctant to make style the excuse for every 
theme. 

G. S. H. 



[176] 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 
LAZARETTO 

From hearsay and eyesight, I wish to string 
together a few notes of the history of this 
melancholy place. When the Hawaiian gov- 
ernment embraced the plan of segregation, 
they were doubtless (as is the way of govern- 
ments) unprepared; and the constitution of 
the Lazaretto, as it now exists, w^as approached 
by blunder and reached by accident. 

It would be easy in this place to gratify the 
curiosity of readers, to saw on the sentimental 
cord, and heap up moving detail. To repro- 
duce my diary as it stands would perhaps best 
serve my interest and the public taste. But 
the question of the Lazaretto is one on which 
sentiment must be discouraged; which should 
be approached in cool and reasonable blood. 
If there are lepers, if leprosy be showing (as 
begins to seem admissible) renewed powers of 
attack, it is time other powers followed the ex- 
ample of Hawaii; it is time one and all made 
ready to war on the renovated enemy; it is 
time we were done with bleating and shudder- 
ing. I own here that I have shuddered often ; 
my flesh was impressionable; all my life de- 

[^77'] 



formity and living decay have haunted me like 
nightmares; when I saw, lying athwart the 
sunrise, the leper promontory and the bare 
town of Kalaupapa, when the first boat set out 
laden with patients, when it was my turn to 
follow in the second, seated by two sisters on 
the way to their becuring labours, when we 
drew near the landing stairs, and saw them 
crowded with the sick and the unsightly, I 
take no shame to myself, but I will not con- 
ceal that weakness, horror and cowardice 
worked in the marrow of my bones/ The 
coming of the new sisters had attracted an 

1 Mrs. Stevenson wrote: "He talked very little to us of the 
tragedy of Molokai, though I could see it lay heavy upon his 
spirits." — "It did not occur to him it would be necessary to 
get a separate official permission to leave Molokai; hence he 
was nearly left behind when the vessel sailed out. He only 
saved himself by a prodigious leap which landed him on 
board the boat whence nothing but force could dislodge him. 
By the doctor's orders he took gloves to wear as a precaution- 
ary measure against contagion, but they were never worn. At 
first he avoided shaking hands, but when he played croquet 
with the young leper girls he would not listen to the Mother 
Superior's warning that he must wear gloves. He thought it 

might remind them of their condition One of the 

first things he did on his return to Honolulu was to send 
Mother Mary Ann, the Mother Superior, a grand piano for the 
use of her girls — the girls with whom he had played croquet. 
He also sent toys, sewing materials, small tools for the younger 
children, and other things that I have forgotten. After his 
death a letter was found among his papers, of which I have 
only the last few lines: 'I cannot suppose you remember me, 
but I won't forget you, nor God won't forget you for your 
kindness to the blind white leper at Molokai.' " 

[178] 



unusual attendance, in the midst of which I 
felt myself a stranger. To many of those 
^Vho meddle with cold iron" (in the form of 
pens) some design of writing affords excuse 
sufficient for the most gross intrusions: per- 
haps less fortunate, I have never attained to 
this philosophy; and I fled from the scene of 
welcome, and set forth on foot for Kalawao. 
Belated lepers were coming up continually 
on horseback; others sat in their doorways; 
with those I exchanged salutations ; with these 
I occasionally stopped and fell in talk. I 
had not been long upon the way before there 
stole into my heart a blessed conviction — that 
these creatures, however deformed, however 
close on death, were happy; and before I had 
met Mr. Hutchinson bringing me a horse, the 
blackness had been quite lifted from my spirit. 
I will tell but the one incident; infinitely lit- 
tle — but which struck me particularly at the 
time. It was still quite early morning, as I 
went with my bundles up the road; the air 
was cool, the level sunbeams struck overhead 
on the foli, the birds were piping in the cliff- 
side woods. Along either side of the way, 
scattered houses stood nakedly on the green 

[179] 



down; and to the porch of one I was sum- 
moned by a woman. She knew English ; she 
was comely in face and person; of engaging 
manners ; and spoke with an affectionate gen- 
tleness. It leaked out in the course of talk 
that she thought I was the new white patient; 
and when I had corrected the mistake, she 
sought not to conceal her disappointment. I 
went on again surprised; she had thought I 
was a leper, doomed (like herself) to spend 
my few last of days in that seclusion ; and when 
she found she was deceived, her only thought 
was of regret. In view of my thoughts of 
leprosy, in view of the mountain outlaws, of 
the scene so recently inscribed upon my mem- 
ory on the beach at Hookena, it was hard to 
understand her attitude. But it is the atti- 
tude (so far as I was able to observe) of 
Kalawao. 

The history of all institutions is a Tale of 
mistakes. They are born immature; among 
progressive peoples, before one part be per- 
fected, another will begin to grow obsolete; 
and the radical, as we name the hunter of 
consummation in these fields, is apt to be a 
man without historic sense. Of the futility 

[i8o] 



of design, the story of the Lazaretto affords 
a curious instance. Nothing appears more 
culpable than that series of negligence by 
which the lepers were reduced to pauperism; 
perhaps nothing was more fortunate. The 
wildest settle down contented to this life of 
parasites. No work, and regular rations; 
these are the attractions, these the dulcia leni- 
minay of Kalawao. I heard two men discuss- 
ing an escape; one was an official. "Ah," 
cried he, referring to the fugitive, "he had 
not been long here!'' And such I believe is 
the fact at least with natives; if they seek to 
escape at all, it is while they are new caught. 
Still more singular is the attitude of the clean 
Kokuas. These, who are usually connections 
of the sick, allowed to accompany their wives, 
husbands, or children, are the working bees 
of the sad hive; the laborers, butchers, store- 
keepers, nurses and grave diggers, in that 
place of melancholy, and folded hands. The 
surroundings, the few toilers, looked upon 
by so many delivered from all touch of need — 
the frequency of death, the brevity of pros- 
pect, the consequent estimation of the moment, 
might perhaps, even on the most stalwart of 

[i8i] 



our northern races, work some influence of 
disenchantment. In the Kokuas, the result 
appears to be unmingled envy of a better state. 
Dr. Swift had once in his hand a lancet charg- 
ed with the virus of leprosy. ^'Come here," 
he cried, in somewhat appalling pleasantry, 
to one of the Kokuas. "Come here, and I will 
make a leper of you." The man advanced, 
rolling up his sleeve as he came. He was en- 
tirely serious; nor w^as he at all singular in 
this readiness. Paris valait bien une messe; 
and rations are worth leprosy. 

Within the precinct, it must be remember- 
ed, to be leprous is the rule. The disease no 
longer awakens pity, nor do its deformities 
move shame in the patient or disgust in the 
beholder. The girl at Hookena, a leper at 
large amongst the clean, held down her face; 
I w^as glad to find she would soon walk with 
head erect among her fellows, and perhaps be 
attended as a beaut}^ 

To the point; I was riding late one after- 
noon from Kalaupapa, and saw far in front of 
me, on the dow^nward slope that leads to Kal- 
awano, a group of natives returning from 
some junket. They wore their many colored 

[182] 



Sunday's best, bright wreathes of flowers in 
the Hawaiian fashion around their necks; 
the trade wind brought me strains of song and 
laughter; and I saw them gambol as they 
came, and the men and women chase and 
change places with each other by the way. 
It made, from a distance, an engaging picture; 
I had near forgot in what distressful country 
my road lay; a little nearer, I saw that two of 
them — and not the least adorned — were in- 
humanly defaced. The standard had fallen 
w^ith the circumstance; and those who would 
be elsewhere things to frighten children, 
might here court admiration and awaken de- 
sire. 

Steamer Janet NichoW^ 
My dear Mother, — 

The lively Jane as she is called by those 
who know her is just illustrating her skittish- 
ness, and my hand of write suflfers in conse- 
quence. We have a most agreeable ship's 
company; the start has stopped my lung sym- 
toms almost entirely, but I have had as yet no 
change of climate, as we are going to Auck- 

1 In the margin of the letter is written, "Auckland, April 1890," 
in another handwriting. 

[183] 



land, and tonight it rains and blows, and the 
Janet Janetises; you never saw so quick a rol- 
ler. I am beginning this under these unto- 
ward circumstances to have it ready for Auck- 
land; and I can only hope the pencil may re- 
main legible. The party is the captain, a very 
mild German; Henderson, a very nice fellow 
like Chandler whom we met on the Ludgate 
Hill, but he may leave us at Auckland; Stod- 
dard, engineer, frae Glesgie; Heard, super- 
cargo, frae Aiberdeen; Jack Buckland, a 
strange Sydney T. .fite and (at the same time, 
or rather in alternate layers) Gilbert Island 
Beachcomber, admirably good-looking and 
really nice in his way; indeed the whole lot is 
first rate. On the back I am going to give you 
a plan of some of the ship, which of course 
(near 500 tons) is a mighty fine affair for the 
likes of us; or would be, if she could be in- 
duced to stop rolling and wallowing like a 
drunken tub. The o's are dead lights, i 
main cabin. 2. our stateroom. 3. Lloyd and 
Buckland. 4. Henderson. 5. Heard. 6. W. C. 
7. Companion. The main cabin is 15 feet 
long, 7 ft. headroom. Above the cabin is a 
spar deck and above that again the bridge; 

[184] 



abaft the cabins are the galley and the en- 
gines. It is very pleasant to have the engines 
behind; but there is no use in trying to blink 
the fact that the Janet is a pig. I never saw 
such a roller. Again, last night since I began 
to write, I was nearly thrown out of my bunk, 
and so was Buckland; and eating is a toil and 
trial. Our route is Savage, Semaroff(?), 
Wauihiki, Penrhyn(?), Christmas, Danger 
Islands, Tokalaus, Ellias, Gilberts, Marshalls; 
and afterwards we are in doubt. You can 
look 'em up on the map. Xmas is doubtful, 
but possible; the others named (bar accident) 
certain; you see what a space we are to cover, 
though it's all low islands again. I shall know 
something of the Pacific now. I am, dear 
mother. 

Ever your afft. son, 

R. L. S. 

Schooner Equator^ at sea 
240 miles from Samoa, 
Sunday, Dec. ist, 1889. 
My dear Mother, — 

We are drawing (we fondly hope) to the 
close of another voyage like that from Tahiti 

[185] 



to Hawaii; we sailed from Butaritari on the 
4th November, and since then have lain be- 
calmed under cataracts of rain, or kicked 
about in purposeless squalls. We were six- 
teen souls in this small schooner, eleven in the 
cabin; our confinement and overcrowding in 
the wxt weather was excessive; we lost our 
foretopmast in a squall; the sails were contin- 
ually being patched (we had but the one 
suit) and with all attention we lost the 
jibtopsail almost entirely and the staysail 
and mainsail are far through. To com- 
plete the discomfort, we have carried a 
very mild weatherglass; a daily fall of 15- 
hundredths in four hours, followed by a cor- 
responding rise, and on one occasion accom- 
panied by the fall of the thermometer to 79* 
at noon, kept us on the qui-vive. I wonder 
are you already so far out of key with the 
South Seas, that 79° at noon will seem warm 
to you? You should have seen the great coats 
out! I myself wore two wool undershirts, a 
knitted waistcoat — the gift of the King of 
Apemama — and a flannel blazer; and I was 
seriously thinking of a flannel shirt, when 
the cold let up. My birthday was a great 

[186] 



event; Mr. Rich, the agent of the firm at Bu- 
taritari, who makes on this trip one of the 
eleven beings in the cabin, had his on the 
twelfth ; so we had two days festivity, — cham- 
pagne, music, the capture of sharks, dolphins 
and skipjack — mighty welcome additions to 
our table. Ah Fu (at my elbow in the trade- 
room door) begs me to add that the little land 
birds joined the ship and stayed some twenty 
hours. The log says: "13th, throughout this 
day dead calm with heavy rain; sometimes 
very light westerly airs; and very strong 
easterly current." Of course we had no ob- 
servation, but our position next day was 179* 
35' E, 6° 58' N, which could not be far out, 
as that was a calm also. On the evening of 
my birthday, all hands came in the cabin to 
make me a compliment; the long American 
sailor (called The Fisherman's Child^ after a 
doleful ditty that he sings) was at the wheel; 
compared, Ta Toma, tall powerful Hawaiian, 
about twenty; Teu Tau, Apaiang islander, 
perhaps 13; Charlie Selth, San Franciscan, of 
Scotch origin, and very like our Agnes, 15; 
La, Honolulu stowaway, perhaps 13; Georgie 
(called George Muggery Bowyer, Esq.) Ha- 

[187] 



waiian, the ship's infant, age, perhaps 9 — his 
little jacket shrunk almost up to his nipples, 
his little breeches (once they were trousers) 
leaving bare his knees below and a part of his 
hips above; how they staid on, nobody can 
guess. Both marines of the after guard were 
at table, Fanny, Lloyd, Joe and I; Captain 
Denis Reid, Greenock, 25, Adolf Rick, Gal- 
lician, born in Prussia, 43; Paul Leonard, 28, 
Prussian, known as the Passenger to Waiiki 
— towards which island, like a will o' the wisp, 
he has been sailing in this Equator for nine 
weeks, and will sail at least half as many more, 
and yet he has twice sighted it, and then the 
wind failed, the westerly current took charge, 
and farewell Waiiki! Tom Thomson, but 
his name is Ole Somethingson, Norwegian, 
our mate, the tavern keeper on Waiiki, thirty. 
In the background, our cook and steward the 
great Ah Fu, Sana [?] China, and Murray 
Macallum, son of a Freekirk minister on the 
Clyde — Mr. Swan has been in his father's 
house — aged maybe 20. To this congrega- 
tion, in the small, lamplighted, tossing cabin, 
nine feet square, with the compass and the 
binnacle lantern inside on a bracket on the af- 

[188] 



ter bulkhead, and the steersman looking down 
at us through an eye-shaped aperture, like a 
narrow-loophole — add the incessant uproar of 
the tropic rain, the dripping leaks, the slush 
on the floor, and the general sense that we were 
nowhere in particular and drifting anywhere 
at large; and there is my 39th birthday! 
Charlie Selth was the spokesman of the crew, 
and made a neat little speech of a sentence, 
and you should have seen the row of brown 
faces, tailing down from Tatoma to George. 
Georgie comes aft every morning to get from 
the Captain his "Boia" — a thrashing; it is 
quite solemnly gone through on both sides, and 
I must candidly declare is the only duty the 
child has, or at least attends to. From this 
word, his family name of Bowyer has been 
deduced by the Heralds of the Equator] the 
middle name "Muggery" is (something like) 
a native word; and the whole thing gives very 
much the effect of an heir to a baronetcy. 
We had a fine alert once; a p. d. reef ahead 

— three positions indicated, our own disputed 

— a very heavy sea running — the boats cleared 
and supplied with bread and water, our little 
packets made (medicines, papers, and woollen 

[189] 



clothes) and the poor passenger for Waiiki 
trying rather ruefully to insure his little all 
which was on board. It was rather fine going 
to bed that night; though, had we struck the 
reef, the boat voyage of four or five hundred 
miles would have been no joke. 

Fanny has stood the hardships of this rough 
cruise wonderfully; but I do not think I could 
enforce her to another of the same. I've been 
first rate, though I am now done for lack of 
green food. Joe is, I fear, really ill; and 
Lloyd has bad sores in his leg. We shall send 
Joe on to Sydney by the first steamer; and 
Lloyd, Fanny and I shall stay on awhile (time 
quite vague) in Samoa. Write to Sydney. 
We shall turn up in England by May or June. 
Ever your afft. son, 

R. L. S. 



[190] 



PRAYERS AT VAILIMA— 1890-1894 

In the volume of Miscellanies, published 
(Edinburgh Edition, Volume 4) after Stev- 
enson's death, fourteen of the prayers — gen- 
erally very brief — composed by him for his 
household at Vailima, testify to the decided 
change from the early Edinburgh days when 
he chafed under the religious atmosphere that 
hung upon him in his father's home. The 
two additional prayers here are in the same 
vein as others with which Stevensonians are 
familiar. The confession of weakness and the 
inclination toward kindness are the two notes 
that ring truest throughout most of Sevenson's 
prayers. 

Above the first one of the two here printed, 
Stevenson has written : 'Tor family prayer ;'* 
and the word ''family" has not simply the us- 
ual connotation, but includes those Samoan 
children — in this instance all boys — who, ac- 
cording to the custom of the island, were 
adopted by missionaries or European "chiefs," 
interested in educating the natives. In his ca- 
pacity as the temporary "father" of the chil- 
dren of Samoan chiefs, the head of a little 
clan, Stevenson realized the necessity of seek- 

[191] 



ing to be an exemplar in religious as well as 
domestic duties; and though at times he failed 
in a strict observance of the Sabbath, he was 
consistently a leader in those brief family 
prayers, the utterance of which gave all the 
more pleasure to him because they brought 
such deep satisfaction to his religiously inclin- 
ed mother who was then living under his roof. 

G. S. H. 



[ 192] 



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PRAYERS AT VAILIMA 

I 

O God, who throughout life hast pursued 
us with thy mercies and thy judgments, and in 
love and anger led us daily forward, as thou 
hast not been weary in the past, be not weary 
yet awhile. Pardon our dull spirits, and 
whether with mercy or with judgment, call us 
up from slumber. 

For as we kneel together, in this cruel state, 
weak folk, with many weaker depending on 
our help, sinful folk, with the whole earth 
ministering temptations, we would desire to 
remember equally our need and thy power. 
Save us, O Lord, from ourselves. The prayer 
that we lifelessly repeat, hear, Lord, and make 
it live, and answer it in mercy. 

Let us not judge amiss, let us not speak with 
cruelty; our kindness to others, sufifer it not to 
weary. May we grow merciful by tribula- 
tions, liberal by mercies. Thou who sendest 
thy rain upon the just and the unjust, help us 
to pardon, help us to love, our fellow-sinners. 



[193] 



II 

O God, who hast brought us to the end of 
another day, of use or of uselessness, pardon, 
as is thy wont, the manifold sins and short- 
comings of our practise, the discontent and 
envy of our thoughts; enable us this night to 
enjoy the repose of slumber and waken us 
again tomorrow, with better thoughts and a 
greater courage, to resume the task of life. 
Bless to us the pleasures, bless to us the pains 
of our existence. Suffer us not to forget the 
bonds of our humanity; give us strength, give 
us the spirit of mercy, give us the power to 
endure. Leave us not indifferent, O God, but 
pierce our hearts to resolve and enable our 
hands to perform, as before thy face in the 
sight of the eternal. Watch upon our eyes, 
ears, thoughts, tongues and hands, that we may 
neither think unkindly, speak unwisely or act 
unrighteously. 

Guide us, thou who didst guide our fathers; 
and upon this day more especially set apart for 
prayer, receive our penitent and grateful 
thoughts; and hear us, when we pray for oth- 
ers and ourselves; that they may be blessed 
and we be helpful; and give us, beyond our 

[194] 



deserts to receive, beyond our imaginations to 
expect, the grace to die daily to our evil, and 
to live ever the more and ever the more wholly 
to Thee and to our fellow-sufferers. 

Hear us for His sake, in whose name we 
w^ould further say: [Here he doubtless in- 
tended to repeat the Lord's Prayer J\ 



[195] 




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